July 15, 2020 – Peace Corps Worldwide

We Called him Sarge — Remembering Sargent Shriver

Jul 15 2020

Next year, as we celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Peace Corps, Rosetta Books will publish We Called It a War by Sargent Shriver. This book was an unfinished memoir of Shriver’s about his work with the War on Poverty, and also much about starting and developing the Peace Corps. It had been edited by a partner in his law firm, Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson, LLP. Bill Josephson, Special Assistant to the Director and then General Counsel during the Shriver years, wrote in the Foreword of the book, “The manuscript of We Called It a War came to light, after nearly fifty years, in a box of Sargent Shriver documents that the Sargent Shriver Peace Institute received from Special Olympics International. When We Called It a War is published, Marian Beil and I– through our website that focuses on the Peace Corps and Peace Corps writers– want . . .

“Making movies as a PCV” — Richard Wallace (Morocco)

Jul 15 2020

The Couscous Chronicles — A Peace Corps Memoir Richard Wallace (Morocco 1977–79) Self-published July 2020 260 pages $14.95 (paperback), $0 (Kindle) Make movies in the Peace Corps? Richard Wallace (Morocco 1977-79) did just that. Fresh out of college and packing his film production degree, he wanted to travel. In 1977, he joined the annual deployment of trainees to Morocco’s capital city of Rabat, learning French, some Arabic and the nuances of Islamic culture. Richard’s job post: a media team for the Ministry of Agriculture, producing training films and printed materials for farmers. Sworn in as a Peace Corps Volunteer with a new job to tackle, he was challenged to assimilate into the Moroccan way of life. Associations with his female roommate and co-worker, plus a steady parade of visitors, proved both entertaining and educational. Richard’s memoir, The Couscous Chronicles, relates the adventures a bunch of ambitious, curious and mostly dedicated twenty-somethings . . .

THE PEACE CORPS IN LATIN AMERICA by Fernando Purcell

Jul 15 2020

In the 1960s, twenty-thousand young Americans landed in South America to serve as Peace Corps volunteers. The program was hailed by President John F. Kennedy and by volunteers themselves as an exceptional initiative to end global poverty. In practice, it was another front for fighting the Cold War and promoting American interests in the Global South. This book examines how this ideological project played out on the ground as volunteers encountered a range of local actors and agencies engaged in anti-poverty efforts of their own. As they negotiated the complexities of community intervention, these volunteers faced conflicts and frustrations, struggled to adapt, and gradually transformed the Peace Corps of the 1960s into a truly global, decentralized institution. Drawing on letters, diaries, reports, and newsletters created by volunteers themselves, Fernando Purcell shows how their experiences offer an invaluable perspective on local manifestations of the global Cold War. Fernando Purcell is . . .

Archive - July 15, 2020