Description: Nearly 1,600 Americans who took part in the Vietnam War are still missing and presumed dead. Sarah Wagner tells the stories of those who mourn and continue to search for them. Today's forensic science can identify remains from mere traces, raising expectations for repatriation and forcing a new reckoning with the toll of America's most fraught war.
Brief description: Sarah E. Wagner is Associate Professor of Anthropology at George Washington University. She has written widely on war and its devastations, focusing in particular on forensic efforts to recover and identify the victims of violence in both the United States and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and is the author of two previous books, To Know Where He Lies and, with Lara J. Nettelfield, Srebrenica in the Aftermath of Genocide. She has received a number of awards, including fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Review Quotes: Unlike many other previous books on MIA accounting that have focused on the political history of the issue during the Reagan era or that have chronicled a single individual's efforts to recover a family member in Vietnam, Wagner seeks to understand the social context and meaning of MIA forensic accounting...Thoughtful and objective.--Montgomery McFate "Science" (11/22/2019 12:00:00 AM)