All You Need Is Love: The Peace Corps and the Spirit of the 1960s

The nation was powerful and prosperous, the president was vigorous and young, and a confident generation was gathering its forces to test the New Frontier. The cold war was well under way, but if you could just, as the song went, “put a little love in your heart,” then “the world would be a better place.” The Peace Corps, conceived in the can-do spirit of the sixties, embodied America’s long pursuit of moral leadership on a global scale. Traversing four decades and three continents, this story of the Peace Corps and the people and politics behind it is a fascinating look at American idealism at work amid the hard political realities of the second half of the twentieth century. More than any other entity, the Peace Corps broached an age-old dilemma of U.S. foreign policy: how to reconcile the imperatives and temptations of power politics with the ideals of freedom and self-determination for all nations. All You Need Is Love follows the struggle to balance the tensions between these values from the Corps’ first heady days under Sargent Shriver and beyond to the questioning years of the Vietnam War, when the Peace Corps was accused of being window dressing for imperialism. It follows the Peace Corps through the years when volunteering dropped off―and finally into its renewed popularity amid the widespread conviction that the Peace Corps preserves the nation’s finest traditions. With vivid stories from returned volunteers of exotic places and daunting circumstances, this is an engrossing account of the successes and failures of this unique governmental organization, and of the geopolitics and personal convictions that underpin it. In the end, the question that is most compelling is whether the Peace Corps most helped the countries that received its volunteers, or whether its greater service was to America and its sense of national identity and mission.

Business & Money

Hoffman, Elizabeth Cobbs

Job Hunting & Careers

Harvard University Press

Commentators call the United States an empire: occasionally a benign empire, sometimes an empire in denial, often a destructive empire. In American Umpire, Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman explores key turning points in history from George Washington to Barack Obama. She challenges the notion that the United States is an empire, and asserts instead that America has performed the role of umpire since 1776, compelling adherence to rules that gradually earned broad approval, even though it also violated these rules on occasion. Over time, prosperity spread, wars declined in ferocity, and human life expectancy doubled worldwide. But security came at a cost that was not shared equally by all. The United States is the world's most powerful country--and one of its richest--but more exposed to criticism and hazards than ever. Umpiring is a weighty responsibility. With all eyes upon them, umpires cannot win.

American Umpire

History

Americas

In the Lion's Den: A Novel of the Civil War

In 1861, the war that has threatened the United States for decades suddenly rips the country apart, pitting the industrial North against the agricultural South. President Lincoln dispatches Charles Francis Adams, the son of John Quincy Adams, to London to prevent America's nemesis-England-from aiding the Confederate cause. When Adams arrives, he discovers the English are already building warships for the South, and realizes that the very fate of his country is at risk. He enters into a high-stakes game of espionage and diplomacy, determined to save the nation his father and grandfather built. Adams' son, Henry, accompanies his father on the mission, knowing the impact it will have on the war if they fail. While in London, Henry renews a friendship with Baxter Sams, a Southerner. Baxter is studying medicine at the Royal College and has fallen in love with an Englishwoman whose family disapproves of Americans. He is torn between reviling slavery and running medicine across the blockade to help his Confederate brothers. The two young men give voice to the debate raging between thousands of friends and families at home and abroad-and between Charles Francis Adams and the British government. In the Lion's Den is an epic tale of intrigue, loyalty, and courage set in London and New York at a time when the British Empire was at its zenith and the American nation in collapse. Casting light into a little-known aspect of history, Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman delivers a gripping narrative of one of America's finest politicians.

Literature & Fiction

Genre Fiction

Rising Star

In 1861, the war that has threatened the United States for decades suddenly rips the country apart, pitting the industrial North against the agricultural South. President Lincoln dispatches Charles Francis Adams, the son of John Quincy Adams, to London to prevent America's nemesis-England-from aiding the Confederate cause.   When Adams arrives, he discovers the English are already building warships for the South, and realizes that the very fate of his country is at risk. He enters into a high-stakes game of espionage and diplomacy, determined to save the nation his father and grandfather built.   Adams' son, Henry, accompanies his father on the mission, knowing the impact it will have on the war if they fail. While in London, Henry renews a friendship with Baxter Sams, a Southerner. Baxter is studying medicine at the Royal College and has fallen in love with an Englishwoman whose family disapproves of Americans. He is torn between reviling slavery and running medicine across the blockade to help his Confederate brothers. The two young men give voice to the debate raging between thousands of friends and families at home and abroad-and between Charles Francis Adams and the British government.   In the Lion's Den is an epic tale of intrigue, loyalty, and courage set in London and New York at a time when the British Empire was at its zenith and the American nation in collapse. Casting light into a little-known aspect of history, Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman delivers a gripping narrative of one of America's finest politicians.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Hoffman, Elizabeth Cobbs. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Hoffman, Elizabeth Cobbs

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Hoffman, Elizabeth Cobbs. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

All You Need Is Love: The Peace Corps and the Spirit of the 1960s

American Umpire

In the Lion's Den: A Novel of the Civil War

In the Lion's Den: A Novel of the Civil War