December 6, 2015 – Peace Corps Worldwide

Steven Radelet (Samoa 1981-83) Publishes The Great Surge:The Ascent of the Developing World

Dec 06 2015

Steven Radelet (Western Samoa 1981-83) holds the Donald F. McHenry Chair in Global Human Development at Georgetown University, is an economic adviser to the president of Liberia, and the author of Emerging Africa: How 17 Countries Are Leading the Way. He has just written a new book, The Great Surge: The Ascent of the Developing World, published last month, that takes the position that “never before have so many people in so many developing countries made this much progress.” His book states that since the end of the Cold War, the development of new technologies, globalization, courageous local leadership, and, in some cases, good fortune have combined to dramatically improve the fate of hundred of millions of people in poor countries around the world. Early in his book, Radelet quotes another famous Peace Corps writer, Paul Theroux (Malawi 1963-65), who declared in 2013 in a piece for Barron’s that “I . . .

Here's a Comment from Andrew Herman We All Should Read on Peace Corps Fantasies

Dec 06 2015

“Talking with Dr. Molly Geidel about her Provocative Cultural History of the 1960s’ Peace Corps” Comment: Thank you John for facilitating this discussion and giving it quite a rocket engine of a start. First of all, I neither have time nor energy to expose all of the logical fallacies upholding this many-headed argument accusing 50 years of goodwill by Peace Corps volunteers of committing more harm than good. However, I will attack the most egregious of them here. For starters her entire argument assumes the Peace Corps must be guilty by association with the US federal government and never once attempts to quantify how exactly this argument should be upheld. As a scientist I was taught, “if it cannot be measured, it does not exist.” How exactly does Geidel intend to measure Peace Corps’ negative effects on indigenous cultures around the Third World? And even if it were proven fact, . . .

Archive - December 6, 2015