The Nevada Review is a journal dedicated to Nevada: it aims to enhance understanding of the state as a geographical, social, and political unit and a microcosm of the West in the broader historical and political development of the United States. Recognizing the distinctive geological, environmental, social and ethnographic characteristics of Nevada, the Review seeks contributions that examine these features and investigate how they have contributed to the shape of its political institutions, demographic profile, and cultural mores. To this end, the Review encompasses studies from a broad range of disciplines and perspectives, including, but not limited to, history, political science, economics, and literary criticism and also accepts literary contributions of short fiction that concern Nevada, its people, and their way of life. No unsolicited poetry submissions are currently being accepted.

Desert Mementos is a collection of loosely connected short stories set during the early stages of the Iraq War (2004 and 2005). The stories rotate from battles with insurgents and the drudgery of the war machine in Iraq to Nevada, where characters are either preparing for war, escaping it during their leave, or returning home having seen what they've seen. Cage captures similarities in the respective desert landscapes of both Iraq and Nevada, but it is not just a study in contrasting landscapes. The inter-connected stories explore similarities and differences in human needs from the perspectives of vastly different cultures. Specifically, the stories deftly capture the overlap in the respective desert landscapes of each region, the contrasting cultures and worldviews, and the common need for hope. Taken together, the stories represent the arc of a year-long deployment by young soldiers. Cage's stories are bound together by the soldier's searing experiences in the desert, bookended by leaving and returning home to Nevada, which in many ways can be just as disorienting as patrolling the Iraq desert.

Since the end of the draft in the United States, the nation's wars have been fought by all-volunteer forces, creating an enormous divide between the civilian public and its military. Recent wars have taken place during the information age, allowing cable news and the ""new media"" of the internet to change, sometimes on a daily or even hourly basis, the way wars are understood. As a result, a multitude of competing and often flawed narratives have emerged that, ultimately, merely explain events in terms of self-serving political and cultural perspectives. Author Caleb S. Cage, a veteran of the war in Iraq, brings a unique perspective to the understanding of how we talk about war. Why does the American public believe that those who served are somehow both heroes and victims, while the typical service member rarely embraces either identity? How does what happens on the front line get communicated to those back home, and what happens to that information as it travels? Is it possible that works of fiction are telling the most ""real"" versions of what is happening ""over there""? War Narratives is a tightly packed and provocative book containing a series of connected essays on the many competing narratives-both fiction and nonfiction-that are used to explain recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, how those narratives are perceived through preexisting social, political, and literary lenses, and how they often fall short. As Cage points out, narratives are not merely the stories shared or even how they are told; these expressions reflect choices.

In March 2004, Caleb S. Cage and Gregory M. Tomlin deployed to Baquba, Iraq, on a mission that would redefine how conventional U.S. military forces fight an urban war. Having led artillery units through a transition into anti-insurgent rifle companies and carrying out daily combat patrols in one of the region's most notorious hotspots, Cage and Tomlin chronicle Task Force 1-6 Field Artillery's year on the ground in Iraq and its response to the insurgency that threatened to engulf their corner of the Sunni Triangle.Rather than presenting a snapshot dominated by battle scenes, ""The Gods of Diyala"" presents a wide-angled view of the experiences of Cage and Tomlin and their comrades-in-arms. They assess the implications of their experiences, starting with their pre-deployment training in Germany and ending with the handing over of duties to their replacement brigade at the close of their tour of duty. They discuss frankly their impressions of the benefits and liabilities of working with embedded journalists and relate both their frustrations with and their admiration for the fledgling Iraqi security forces. From chaotic security planning to personal debates on the principles of democracy, both authors discuss how Iraqis perceived the value of their first post-Saddam elections and the political future of their country as it tries to reinvent itself in the wake of a dictator's fall.""The Gods of Diyala"" gives a new and personal perspective on the second stage of the ongoing war in Iraq. Students and scholars of military history will find its insights meaningful and informative, and general readers will enjoy its thoughtful, well-measured narratives of a year spent trying to protect a fragile nation as it struggled toward democracy.