Archive - October 30, 2016

Read Hillary Clinton and the Populist Revolt by George Packer (Togo 1982–83) at NewYorker.com “The Democrats lost the white working class. The Republicans exploited it. Can Clinton win it back?” PHOTOGRAPH BY PHILIP MONTGOMERY FOR THE NEW YORKER

In this series (that I published years ago and republishing for those who have come lately to the site) I will attempt, in short-hand fashion (suitable for blogging), to tell the history of the first years of the agency and the men and women who created the Peace Corps. In those early days of 1960s the agency was full of Mad Men (and a few Mad Women) who were living in a world-of-work atmosphere very much like the provocative AMC drama Mad Men, the program that followed a handful of ruthlessly competitive men and women in New York City who worked in advertising on Madison Avenue. They were living (in case you never saw the series) in an ego-driven world where “selling” was all that matters. The series is set in the early Sixties and has everything we grew up with: cigarette smoking, drinking, sexism, adultery, racism, etc. (I might have left out . . .