As the 1967 graduates of Dartmouth College received their diplomas, not many of them envisioned spending several years overseas in the underdeveloped world, living and working amid unimaginable disease, extreme poverty, and other hardships. But an extraordinary number of class members from the remote college in New Hampshire’s mountains subsequently accepted invitations to journey to twenty-four different countries to live, work, learn, socialize, subsist, and grow with families in their host countries. They were Peace Corps volunteers, and their mission was to promote world peace and friendship in programs of agriculture, conservation, education, forestry, health, hydrology, law, marketing, engineering, rural development, urban development, and tourism. These volunteers were among the more than 650 graduates of the small but historic ivy league institution in the upper Connecticut river valley who have responded over the past sixty years to President John F. Kennedy’s challenge to help their country and the world. Peace Corps’ national headquarters has described Dartmouth’s cooperation with the Corps as “unsurpassed.” This book features their incredible stories, compellingly describing what nineteen of them and five spouses did, how they lived, whom they met, what they learned, and how they were challenged and changed by their experiences.

The Early Years of Peace Corps in Afghanistan: A Promising Time, by Frances Hopkins Irwin and Will A. Irwin, February 2014 In 1962, nine U.S. Peace Corps volunteers arrived in Kabul. Half a century later, at a critical moment of transition in Afghanistan, this book describes what Peace Corps Volunteers learned during the Cold War about how diversity among peoples can be used to enrich cultures, rather than homogenize or destroy them. Before Peace Corps left Afghanistan in 1979, 1650 volunteers had experienced slices of a rapidly changing Afghanistan. This is the story of the first four years, how, under the guidance of first director Robert L Steiner, the volunteers learned to work within Afghan culture and overcame the initial skepticism of Afghans and the Kabul international community, and how by 1966 Peace Corps had grown from a cautious start with five English teachers, three nurses, and a mechanic all in Kabul to 200 volunteers working in all parts of Afghanistan. Fran and Will Irwin frame the story around conversations with Bob Steiner, who brought his ability to speak Persian and his experience growing up and working as a U.S. cultural affairs officer in Iran to building the Peace Corps program in Afghanistan. They draw on their own experience as volunteers, the recollections of other volunteers and staff members, and materials from personal and public records. The book includes 80 pages of writing by volunteers in Afghanistan for now hard-to-find 1960s publications as well as two dozen photographs and a discussion of sources. "The authors have prepared a book of historic significance for the Peace Corps." Foreword by Saif R. Samady, former Deputy Minister of Education in Afghanistan "What makes this book a must-read-for Afghans, Americans, and others interested in international cooperation-is that it provides an example of an appreciated and cost-effective aid program, one that worked." Nour Rahimi, former Editor of the Kabul Times "A Promising Time is thus an essential work for anyone interested in the history of American/Afghan relations." Carl H. Klaus, Founding Director, University of Iowa Nonfiction Writing Program

In this fast-paced, fact-packed memoir of The Sixties, a veteran social activist recalls the idealism of the Kennedy Brothers' push for peace and how it shaped him and others to become peacemakers. The Brothers eloquently laid out their peace agenda - from JFK's call in 1960 to join the New Frontier to RFK's "End the War" Presidential Campaign of 1968. JFK's "Strategy of Peace" speech made in June of '63 motivated a recently graduated UCLA couple to join the Peace Corps, and go to Peru. This richly informed memoir documents how these two Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs), and others, made a difference in U.S. international relations in ways that money could never buy. The emotional heart of this book is the emergence of RFK. Following his 1964 election to the U.S. Senate, he visited Peru and met with PCVs serving in both urban and rural locations. We learn how that trip influenced RFK's views on aiding the impoverished, and who caused the demise of JFK's billion-dollar assistance program for Latin America - The Alliance for Progress. Following their Peace Corps service, the couple returned to Los Angeles. and took employment with UCLA starting on Jan. 1, 1967. On June 23, 1967 they participated in LA's first anti-war march. The peaceful protest ended in a vicious police riot against the protestors, and radicalized the couple. Many coalesced around Robert Kennedy's 1968 campaign for the Presidency, including our eyewitness activist, author Sweet William. We are introduced to the elements of social activism, and to charismatic protest leaders. From this insightful history, we learn when Mexican Americans became Chicanos. We also learn that in Chimbote - "the smelliest place in Peru" - exactly what JFK had hoped Peace Corps Volunteers would accomplish happened - peasants were emboldened to become presidents. With eyewitness reports, excerpts of speeches, photos - all greatly enhanced by the growing body of research into the Kennedy Era, JFK & RFK Made Me Do It: 1960-1968 - this book has everything that is needed to become immersed in Sixties idealism. But alas, the Kennedy Brothers' nighttime burials at Arlington Cemetery - the only veterans ever to be buriedthere at night - put an end to their "strategy of peace."

As World War II comes to an end in 1945, President Franklin D. Roosevelt dies in office. Throughout the country, the greatest generation mourns its leader. A spring snowstorm in Western New York inaugurates the cold war. Chuck Hobbie is just a boy, born on unlucky Friday, April 13th, but fortunate to be a child in Buffalo. As all Buffalonians know, it is not a dazzling city, unless the sparkle of winter snow and the shimmer of reflected summer lights from Erie and Niagara count. Likewise, the city's citizens, families, and teachers are unremarkable, unless resilience, friendships, and quiet, day-to-day hard work matter. Buffalo's children are not special at all, except that they were raised in Buffalo, amid the history of the Niagara Frontier, by people who cared for them and institutions that prepared them to fly. Buffalo's west side is where Chuck comes of age, but his childhood experiences range from there to New Hampshire's White Mountains, a farm in Lewiston, N.Y., Holloway Bay in Ontario, and Alaska's Brooks Range. Join Chuck as he recalls in Buffalo Wings the childhood family, friends, teachers, and experiences that shaped his life in the decades before the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

For the past three decades, many history professors have allowed their biases to distort the way America’s past is taught. These intellectuals have searched for instances of racism, sexism, and bigotry in our history while downplaying the greatness of America’s patriots and the achievements of “dead white men.” As a result, more emphasis is placed on Harriet Tubman than on George Washington; more about the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II than about D-Day or Iwo Jima; more on the dangers we faced from Joseph McCarthy than those we faced from Josef Stalin. A Patriot’s History of the United States corrects those doctrinaire biases. In this groundbreaking book, America’s discovery, founding, and development are reexamined with an appreciation for the elements of public virtue, personal liberty, and private property that make this nation uniquely successful. This book offers a long-overdue acknowledgment of America’s true and proud history.

If an entire nation could seek its freedom, why not a girl? As the Revolutionary War begins, thirteen-year-old Isabel wages her own fight...for freedom. Promised freedom upon the death of their owner, she and her sister, Ruth, in a cruel twist of fate become the property of a malicious New York City couple, the Locktons, who have no sympathy for the American Revolution and even less for Ruth and Isabel. When Isabel meets Curzon, a slave with ties to the Patriots, he encourages her to spy on her owners, who know details of British plans for invasion. She is reluctant at first, but when the unthinkable happens to Ruth, Isabel realizes her loyalty is available to the bidder who can provide her with freedom. From acclaimed author Laurie Halse Anderson comes this compelling, impeccably researched novel that shows the lengths we can go to cast off our chains, both physical and spiritual.