All you need is love

The Peace Corps, conceived in the can-do spirit of the sixties, embodied America's long pursuit of moral leadership on a global scale. Traversing four decades and three continents, this story of the Peace Corps and the people and politics behind it is a fascinating look at American idealism at work amid the hard political realities of the second half of the twentieth century. With vivid stories from returned volunteers of exotic places and daunting circumstances, this is an engrossing account of the successes and failures of this unique governmental organization, and of the geopolitics and personal convictions that underpin it. In the end, the question that is most compelling is whether the Peace Corps most helped the countries that received its volunteers, or whether its greater service was to America and its sense of national identity and mission.

First sentence: At its inception the Peace Corps told Americans what was best about their country and about the 1960s: the promise of youth, the New Frontier envisioned by John F. Kennedy, the humanitarian impulses of the United States, the pioneer spirit reborn, and the persistence of America's democratizing "mission."

Year

1998

Language

English

Publisher

Harvard University Press

Editions

1

Pages

318

ISBN

9780674003804

Data source: Wikidata