I graduated from college in May 2003 feeling very little trust in myself but a great deal of trust in American military power. My instincts had been to oppose the war that had, at least from the vantage point of the Columbia University lawn on which I sat in mortarboard and gown, been won. I had the ambition to be a writer, but I had neither confidence that I had anything worthwhile to say nor any compelling job prospects.

David Burr Gerrard discusses the genesis of his novel Short Century at Biographile.

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