Hello Dear Reader,
Let me tell you a few things about me: I love the Peace Corps. I love to read. I think that Wikipedia is the future (no, I won't so inclined to reference Wikipedia in a scientific journal artical...but still). For one reason or another, I decided to see what Wikipedia had to say about Peace Corps. In addition to learning about past PC Directors, I found a brief bibliography of books about or referencing Peace Corps. The list was, by no means, exhaustive because I can personally reference at least three books I read in preparation for my own PC service that didn't make the Wiki-list.
If you're a Peace Corps fan like I am, want to read about other volunteers' perspectives, or are in need of a new eddition to your Kindle (I'm an iPad girl myself), check out the list below.
1) Alan Weiss's 1968 account of Peace Corps training, High Risk, High Gain: A Freewheeling Account of Peace Corps Training, has been called "perhaps the most obscure, least known, and most unread" of all the great books written about the Peace Corps experience.[66] Trainees in those days were classified by potential risk and by potential gain and Weiss discovered in his training days that he had been classified as High Risk/High Gain, a potential "Supervolunteer" or a potential "crash and burn." Weiss's book is funny, outrageous and sad but also valuable because it captures the “craziness” of those early years at the Peace Corps.[66]
2) Published in 1969, Moritz Thomsen's Living Poor: A Peace Corps Chronicle (ISBN 978-0295969282) recounts the author's service in Ecuador.[67] RPCV Paul Theroux said that Living Poor was the best book he ever read on the Peace Corps experience[68] and Tom Miller wrote that Thomsen was "one of the great American expatriate writers of the 20th century."[67] "And as an expat, he was free to judge us all, an undertaking he finessed with acute observations, self-deprecation, and a flavorful frame of reference that ranged from a Tchaikovsky symphony to a Sealy Posturpedic mattress."[67]
3) For a history of the Peace Corps' early days, Coates Redmond's Come as You Are (1986, ISBN 978-0151194353) recounts its birth and how it was thrown together in a matter of weeks. "The book works as a charming, first-person history of the people who made the corps what it was in its formative years," says Charles DeBenedetti at the University of Toledo.[69] "This book is highly readable and essential to understand the evolution of the unique Peace Corps spirit and style that continues to characterize the agency almost 45 years later," wrote Maureen Carroll, an early Peace Corps volunteer.[70]
4) George Packer's (Togo 1982–83) The Village of Waiting (1988, ISBN 978-0374527808) is "one of the most wrenchingly honest books ever written by a white person about Africa, a bracing antidote to romantic authenticity myths and exotic horror stories alike," wrote Matt Steinglass.[71] Isak Dinesen, Packer notes, wrote of waking in the Kenyan highlands and thinking, "Here I am, where I ought to be." Packer himself woke up sweating, hungry, "mildly at ease, or mildly anxious. But never where I ought to be."[71]
5) Tom Bissell served for a few months in Uzbekistan in 1996 before he "early terminated". However, Bissell felt he had really failed the people he joined to help, so he returned in 2001 to write Chasing the Sea (2004, ISBN 978-0-375-72754-2) about the Aral Sea. However, "the secret, personal point of the journey was revisiting this failure of mine, to try to make something up to the country and people I’d abandoned," says Bissell. "My ambitions were actually pretty modest. I wanted to write a book that everyone who traveled to Central Asia would want to read, and I wanted to write a book that everyone who joins the Peace Corps has pressed upon them," Bissell said.[72]
6) Kris Holloway's Monique and the Mango Rains: Two Years With a Midwife in Mali (2006, ISBN 978-1577664352) warmly recounts the author's experience as a Peace Corps volunteer in Mali from 1989 to 1990, working as an assistant to a midwife, Monique Dembele. Holloway's memoir provides unique focus on issues of women's health and women's social and economic vulnerability. Reviewing the book for African Studies Review, Yale's Kari A. Hartwig noted that the story, "is told with an honest self-awareness of the author's own naiveté, her hope for a better future for her friend Monique and Monique's family, and the uncertain path of how to bridge difference, culture, opportunities, and privilege"[73]
7) Lawrence F. Lihosit's Peace Corps Chronology; 1961–2010 (2010, 978-1450270694, ISBN 978-1450270694) nominated for the 2010 Peace Corps Writers' Publisher's Special Award,[74] offers a compact history of the Peace Corps as well as informative comparisons. John P. Coyne, editor of Peace Corps Worldwide, has called it "a very impressive book" while fellow Peace Corps historian P. David Searles called it "excellent."
8) Lawrence F. Lihosit's South of the Frontera; A Peace Corps Memoir (2010, ISBN 978-1450218580) is a fast-paced and humorous travel adventure book describing Mexico and Central America between 1975 and 1977 when he went native before even joining the Peace Corps. "One learns a great deal about our Latino neighbors and about ourselves when we respond to them." ,[75] wrote P. David Searles, former Peace Corps staffer and author of a Peace Corps history. Craig Carrozzi, author of The Road to El Dorado (2000, ISBN 9780962028618), called this book "a classic."
9) Lawrence F. Lihosit's Years On and Other Travel Essays (2011, ISBN 978-1-4620-0804-9) includes twelve essays which describe how he hitchhiked along bleak Arizona highways, hacked a path though Honduran mountains in search of water, avoided caiman while riding bulls across flooded Bolivian savannah and grizzlies as he hunted caribou in bush Alaska, ran for his life after getting embroiled in Mexico City politics and more. Tony D'Souza, author of Whiteman commented, "Lihosit chronicles a Moritz Thomsen-like 'path less traveled,' a Peter Hessler-esque possession of language and culture...(the) best and rarest of ex-pats: the Yankee gone native."[76]
10) Lawrence F. Lihosit's Whispering Campaign; Stories from Mesoamerica (2009, ISBN 978-1-4401-7331-8) is like a powerful magnifying glass, focusing on telling details and offering a different hue to American portraits. Allen W. Fletcher, author of Heat, Sand & Friends commented, "As in Chinatown or Ballad of a Thin Man, they go directly to the gut. The mix is a rich one."[77]
Source
Happy Reading,
Dani
Let me tell you a few things about me: I love the Peace Corps. I love to read. I think that Wikipedia is the future (no, I won't so inclined to reference Wikipedia in a scientific journal artical...but still). For one reason or another, I decided to see what Wikipedia had to say about Peace Corps. In addition to learning about past PC Directors, I found a brief bibliography of books about or referencing Peace Corps. The list was, by no means, exhaustive because I can personally reference at least three books I read in preparation for my own PC service that didn't make the Wiki-list.
If you're a Peace Corps fan like I am, want to read about other volunteers' perspectives, or are in need of a new eddition to your Kindle (I'm an iPad girl myself), check out the list below.
1) Alan Weiss's 1968 account of Peace Corps training, High Risk, High Gain: A Freewheeling Account of Peace Corps Training, has been called "perhaps the most obscure, least known, and most unread" of all the great books written about the Peace Corps experience.[66] Trainees in those days were classified by potential risk and by potential gain and Weiss discovered in his training days that he had been classified as High Risk/High Gain, a potential "Supervolunteer" or a potential "crash and burn." Weiss's book is funny, outrageous and sad but also valuable because it captures the “craziness” of those early years at the Peace Corps.[66]
2) Published in 1969, Moritz Thomsen's Living Poor: A Peace Corps Chronicle (ISBN 978-0295969282) recounts the author's service in Ecuador.[67] RPCV Paul Theroux said that Living Poor was the best book he ever read on the Peace Corps experience[68] and Tom Miller wrote that Thomsen was "one of the great American expatriate writers of the 20th century."[67] "And as an expat, he was free to judge us all, an undertaking he finessed with acute observations, self-deprecation, and a flavorful frame of reference that ranged from a Tchaikovsky symphony to a Sealy Posturpedic mattress."[67]
3) For a history of the Peace Corps' early days, Coates Redmond's Come as You Are (1986, ISBN 978-0151194353) recounts its birth and how it was thrown together in a matter of weeks. "The book works as a charming, first-person history of the people who made the corps what it was in its formative years," says Charles DeBenedetti at the University of Toledo.[69] "This book is highly readable and essential to understand the evolution of the unique Peace Corps spirit and style that continues to characterize the agency almost 45 years later," wrote Maureen Carroll, an early Peace Corps volunteer.[70]
4) George Packer's (Togo 1982–83) The Village of Waiting (1988, ISBN 978-0374527808) is "one of the most wrenchingly honest books ever written by a white person about Africa, a bracing antidote to romantic authenticity myths and exotic horror stories alike," wrote Matt Steinglass.[71] Isak Dinesen, Packer notes, wrote of waking in the Kenyan highlands and thinking, "Here I am, where I ought to be." Packer himself woke up sweating, hungry, "mildly at ease, or mildly anxious. But never where I ought to be."[71]
5) Tom Bissell served for a few months in Uzbekistan in 1996 before he "early terminated". However, Bissell felt he had really failed the people he joined to help, so he returned in 2001 to write Chasing the Sea (2004, ISBN 978-0-375-72754-2) about the Aral Sea. However, "the secret, personal point of the journey was revisiting this failure of mine, to try to make something up to the country and people I’d abandoned," says Bissell. "My ambitions were actually pretty modest. I wanted to write a book that everyone who traveled to Central Asia would want to read, and I wanted to write a book that everyone who joins the Peace Corps has pressed upon them," Bissell said.[72]
6) Kris Holloway's Monique and the Mango Rains: Two Years With a Midwife in Mali (2006, ISBN 978-1577664352) warmly recounts the author's experience as a Peace Corps volunteer in Mali from 1989 to 1990, working as an assistant to a midwife, Monique Dembele. Holloway's memoir provides unique focus on issues of women's health and women's social and economic vulnerability. Reviewing the book for African Studies Review, Yale's Kari A. Hartwig noted that the story, "is told with an honest self-awareness of the author's own naiveté, her hope for a better future for her friend Monique and Monique's family, and the uncertain path of how to bridge difference, culture, opportunities, and privilege"[73]
7) Lawrence F. Lihosit's Peace Corps Chronology; 1961–2010 (2010, 978-1450270694, ISBN 978-1450270694) nominated for the 2010 Peace Corps Writers' Publisher's Special Award,[74] offers a compact history of the Peace Corps as well as informative comparisons. John P. Coyne, editor of Peace Corps Worldwide, has called it "a very impressive book" while fellow Peace Corps historian P. David Searles called it "excellent."
8) Lawrence F. Lihosit's South of the Frontera; A Peace Corps Memoir (2010, ISBN 978-1450218580) is a fast-paced and humorous travel adventure book describing Mexico and Central America between 1975 and 1977 when he went native before even joining the Peace Corps. "One learns a great deal about our Latino neighbors and about ourselves when we respond to them." ,[75] wrote P. David Searles, former Peace Corps staffer and author of a Peace Corps history. Craig Carrozzi, author of The Road to El Dorado (2000, ISBN 9780962028618), called this book "a classic."
9) Lawrence F. Lihosit's Years On and Other Travel Essays (2011, ISBN 978-1-4620-0804-9) includes twelve essays which describe how he hitchhiked along bleak Arizona highways, hacked a path though Honduran mountains in search of water, avoided caiman while riding bulls across flooded Bolivian savannah and grizzlies as he hunted caribou in bush Alaska, ran for his life after getting embroiled in Mexico City politics and more. Tony D'Souza, author of Whiteman commented, "Lihosit chronicles a Moritz Thomsen-like 'path less traveled,' a Peter Hessler-esque possession of language and culture...(the) best and rarest of ex-pats: the Yankee gone native."[76]
10) Lawrence F. Lihosit's Whispering Campaign; Stories from Mesoamerica (2009, ISBN 978-1-4401-7331-8) is like a powerful magnifying glass, focusing on telling details and offering a different hue to American portraits. Allen W. Fletcher, author of Heat, Sand & Friends commented, "As in Chinatown or Ballad of a Thin Man, they go directly to the gut. The mix is a rich one."[77]
Source
Happy Reading,
Dani
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