Citizenship | Literature
Select novels, short stories, and nonfiction on contemporary life.
Ben East’s nonfiction debut recounts how JFK’s bold experiment shaped diplomatic careers and influenced modern American diplomacy.
Read, Listen, Watch
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He would be alone, learning a new culture much as he had as a Peace Corps volunteer in Buea, Cameroon, navigating ambiguity by instinct.
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The start of war against Iran by Israel and the United States requires recognition of others’ service and misery before resuming regularly-scheduled programming on Peace.
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Sixty-five years ago today, March 1, 1961, President Kennedy signed the Executive Order that created a Peace Corps within the Department of State.
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I talked extensively about development issues afflicting Honduras. But first I had to develop the reputation for being a true friend of the country and its people. -Ambassador Frank Almaguer
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You Peace Corps people know so much more about the country than most of our politicians do. -attributed to Honduran President Carlos Roberto Flores
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Time to head to the Pacific Islands and see what Peace Corps lawyers were up to in Micronesia in 1966.
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Profiles in Service: Peace Corps Roots in American Diplomacy is now available and I’m reviving the practice of sharing memorable stories from the collection.
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This episode of SoftPower/FulStories, uncharacteristically in-the-moment, offers two hopeful voices paddling calmly, sanely, purposefully, across our current river of despair. The American dream ain’t dead.
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The screenplay will be a pistol report, a gunshot echoing across the naked landscape of America’s mythic past and shattered future. Rebuilt. Enduring.
Ben East Books 