August 4, 2010 – Peace Corps Worldwide

Review — A PEACE CORPS MEMOIR by Terry Sack (Bolivia 1963–65)

Aug 04 2010

Reviewer Leita Kaldi Davis worked for the United Nations and UNESCO, for Tufts’ Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and Harvard University. She worked with Roma (Gypsies) for fifteen years, became a Peace Corps Volunteer in Senegal at the age of 55, then went to work for the Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Haiti for five years. She retired in Florida in 2002. She has written a memoir of Senegal, Roller Skating in the Desert, and is working on a memoir of Haiti. • A Peace Corps Memoir: Answering JFK’s Call by Terry Sack (Bolivia 1963–65; PC/Washington 1968–69) Createspace $15.95 449 pages 2010 Reviewed by Leita Kaldi Davis (Senegal 1993-96) WHEN I FIRST SAW the title, A Peace Corps Memoir: Answering JFK’s Call, I expected a dry narrative of a typical Peace Corps experience, but the author’s unique stories and clear writing style surprised and delighted me. And how could I . . .

Peace Corps Writers Award for Photography book published in 2009 Won by Martha Cooper (Thailand 1963-65)

Aug 04 2010

PEACE CORPS WRITERS is pleased to announce that Subway Art: 25th Anniversary Edition by Martha Cooper (Thailand 1963–65) has won the 2010 Award for the Outstanding Photography Book published by a Peace Corps photographer during 2009. Cooper will receive a framed certificate and a prize of $200. The book has a long history. In the mid-seventies Martha began to specialize in shooting urban vernacular art and architecture and went to work as a staff photographer on the New York Post. At the time, the city was in the throes of bankruptcy and there were neighborhoods with empty apartment buildings, litter-filled vacant lots, a city that appeared more like a war zone than a place to live. She started to shoot street life, particularly kids playing creatively with toys they had made themselves from trash. A young boy showed her his notebook of drawings and explained that he was practicing to . . .

Charlie Peters Writes Book on LBJ

Aug 04 2010

The legendary first Chief of the Division of Evaluation of the Peace Corps, Charlie Peters, has just published Lyndon B. Johnson: The American Presidents Series: The 36th President, 1963-1969. It is part of the American President Series, edited by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., and Sean Wilentz. If not for Vietnam, Peter writes, Johnson would be considered by many to have been one of the greatest presidents, and Charlie points out that LBJ’s domestic legislative achievement is second only to FDR’s. However, many felt that while LBJ’s domestic goals were laudable, the laws he bullied through to meet them were deeply flawed and sowed the seeds of entitlement politics. Charlie asserts that Johnson, raised in the nasty world of Texas politics, remained ruthlessly dedicated to his own advancement and became a great, if flawed, statesman. Charlie was something of a ‘statesman’ himself in West Virginia where he was in the House of Delegates before . . .

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