"We Pierce" is the heartbreaking story of two brothers. One brother, Smith, goes to war. The other brother, Sam, stays home and protests against the war. A true believer in his country, Smith leads a tank company into battle in Iraq during the first Gulf War. Sam, an aspiring writer who is as much a rebel as his older brother is a natural leader, is busy demonstrating in Times Square in New York and at the Capitol steps in Washington, D.C. Smith learns about the true nature of patriotism, camaraderie, modern warfare and, perhaps most important, the soldiers' secret that some things learned over there are better not brought back home. Meanwhile, Sam faces his own personal struggles, questioning the strength of his beliefs while losing a battle with alcohol and narcotics. The depth of the sacrifices made at home by their family's commitment to honor and duty to battlefields abroad haunts both of the brothers, despite their disparate experiences.

As he did with his first novel, "American by Blood," acclaimed novelist Andrew Huebner draws on his family's long experience with violence and military service and renders a haunting novel of war. From the desert of Iraq to the Lower East Side of New York, "We Pierce" is about fighting for what you believe in, no matter what the cost to yourself or your brother.

In American by Blood, three U.S. Army scouts arrive a day late to join General Custer at Little Bighorn. They come upon the ruins of the Seventh Cavalry, a trail of blood and corpses defiled by wild dogs and swarms of flies. It is a scene that will haunt them for the rest of their lives. With the loss at Little Bighorn, the three men find their mission to help clear the land of Indian tribes becoming one of vengeance. As they journey into the dense forests and high plains of the Old West, each man finds more than he bargained for in this epic story that shatters some of our nation's most central myths.

Examining the First World War through the lens of the American South. How did World War I affect the American South? Did southerners experience the war in a particular way? How did regional considerations and, more generally, southern values and culture impact the wider war effort? Was there a distinctive southern experience of WWI? Scholars considered these questions during "Dixie's Great War," a symposium held at the University of Alabama in October 2017 to commemorate the centenary of the American intervention in the war. With the explicit intent of exploring iterations of the Great War as experienced in the American South and by its people, organizers John M. Giggie and Andrew J. Huebner also sought to use historical discourse as a form of civic engagement designed to facilitate a community conversation about the meanings of the war. Giggie and Huebner structured the panels thematically around military, social, and political approaches to the war to encourage discussion and exchanges between panelists and the public alike. Drawn from transcriptions of the day's discussions and lightly edited to preserve the conversational tone and mix of professional and public voices, Dixie's Great War: World War I and the American South captures the process of historians at work with the public, pushing and probing general understandings of the past, uncovering and reflecting on the deeper truths and lessons of the Great War-this time, through the lens of the South. This volume also includes an introduction featuring a survey of recent literature dealing with regional aspects of WWI and a discussion of the centenary commemorations of the war. An afterword by noted historian Jay Winter places "Dixie's Great War"-the symposium and this book-within the larger framework of commemoration, emphasizing the vital role such forums perform in creating space and opportunity for scholars and the public alike to assess and understand the shifting ground between cultural memory and the historical record.