cover image Making a Difference: The Peace Corps at Twenty-Five

Making a Difference: The Peace Corps at Twenty-Five

. Grove/Atlantic, $16.95 (218pp) ISBN 978-1-55584-010-5

This praiseworthy selection of essays, commissioned as part of the Peace Corps' silver anniversary and edited by the author of Hostile Allies and Fall from Grace, contains a wide range of contributors. Among them: Sargent Shriver, the agency's first director, and its current feisty leader, Loret Miller Ruppe, who tell about the Peace Corps' origins and where it is headed; prominent alumni like Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, president Alan Guskin of Antioch College and novelist Paul Theroux; and world leadersfor one, Abdou Diouf, president of Senegal and of the Organization of African Unity. Most informative are the pieces by actual workers who write about their assignments around the world from the '60s to today, some rejoicing in their opportunities, others more reserved, still others concentrating on the difficulties of the job, but none whining or self-pitying. This collection will make readers proud of their fellow Americans who have served in the Corps. (September)