Lucky Me: Engaging a World of Opportunities and Challenges

This book explores an adventurous life of engagement in the challenges of economic development in a destitute China (1946-47), war-torn Korea (1951-52), divided Vietnam (1955-1957), and post-Sukarno Indonesia (1966-71). It also relates the author’s subsequent experiences helping South Korea enter onto its high growth trajectory and Indonesia to modernize its financial system. Interspersed are vignettes of academic life at Deep Springs College, Cornell University, University of Michigan, Vanderbilt University and Harvard, and the challenges of working with the Navajo Nation to extract revenue and reduce pollution from exploitative coal-mining and power companies, as well as trying to devise an appropriate and viable approach to rural development for the remote, politically and culturally divided district of Abyei, on the border between North and South Sudan. Finally, it describes the author's efforts at preserving environmental and historical resources in Southeast Massachusetts. Throughout, the book recounts and acknowledges the important roles of teachers, colleagues, friends and family in enriching the author’s fortunate life.