1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910484281903321

Autore

Purcell Fernando

Titolo

The Peace Corps in South America : Volunteers and the Global War on Poverty in the 1960s / / by Fernando Purcell

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Cham : , : Springer International Publishing : , : Imprint : Palgrave Macmillan, , 2019

ISBN

3-030-24808-9

Edizione

[1st ed. 2019.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (187 pages)

Disciplina

309.223573

362.5098

Soggetti

Latin America—History

United States—History

World politics

World history

Latin American History

US History

Political History

World History, Global and Transnational History

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

1. Introduction: Peace Corp Volunteers as Intermediary Agents in the Global War on Poverty -- 2. Learning to Learn: Community-Development Training during the 1960s -- 3. Confront Poverty Beforehand -- 4. South America's Fertile but Different World -- 5. Difficulties and Frustrations on the Ground -- 6. Volunteers in the Middle of Cold War Ideological Struggles -- 7. Epilogue: De-centering Cold War Narratives Using Peace Corp Volunteer´s Accounts.

Sommario/riassunto

In the 1960s, twenty-thousand young Americans landed in South America to serve as Peace Corps volunteers. The program was hailed by President John F. Kennedy and by volunteers themselves as an exceptional initiative to end global poverty. In practice, it was another front for fighting the Cold War and promoting American interests in the Global South. This book examines how this ideological project played out on the ground as volunteers encountered a range of local actors



and agencies engaged in anti-poverty efforts of their own. As they negotiated the complexities of community intervention, these volunteers faced conflicts and frustrations, struggled to adapt, and gradually transformed the Peace Corps of the 1960s into a truly global, decentralized institution. Drawing on letters, diaries, reports, and newsletters created by volunteers themselves, Fernando Purcell shows how their experiences offer an invaluable perspective on local manifestations of the global Cold War.