Forum

Hi Langley! I am a fellow Peace Corps volunteer who also read the book. I really liked your review! However, I think the book and you in your review are holding the Peace Corps to an unrealistic standard. The Ugly American provides both ideal examples and deplorable examples of foreign service and development work, but no examples of realistic foreign development work that is motivated by peace instead of conflict. It is not a good model for the Peace Corps in the 21st century. The characters in the book who are the authors’ idealist representations of foreign development workers do not depict the reality for the average foreign service officer or volunteer. The Ugly American depicts, for example, a couple a couple living in the fictional southeast Asian country of Sarkhan; the husband delivers a revolutionary water-pump system, increasing efficiency in agricultural practices 10-fold, and a wife who remedies the back problems of an entire generation by showing them a broom handle. These are not realistic benchmarks for your average peace corps volunteer. In the real world, meaningful progress is extremely difficult and slow for a singular volunteer with limited resources in most communities. Also, as many communities are much more connected in the modern world, there are far fewer problems with easy fixes such as those mentioned in the book. The Ugly American also depicts their ideal Americans in isolated communities abroad to be absolutely in love with the local cultures and also completely free of mental health challenges. Many local cultures are riddled with traits that many modern Americans would consider extremely problematic (sexism, homophobia, violence against children, etc). A person that would be considered morally sound in the much of the United States would vehemently disapprove with many practices and cultural values present in a significant portion of rural communities throughout the world. It is very reasonable to expect anyone to struggle immensely with integration into a foreign community and/or run into mental health challenges with isolation and culture shock. I think that the peace corps provides realistic training and realistic expectations for its volunteers. The reality that a volunteer after training is not able to communicate perfectly with their assigned local community is not a failure. It is reality. Delivering effective and meaningful foreign service work is an immense challenge, which is mentioned but at times not fully demonstrated in the book. Even those with sound integration methods, positive intentions, and high work ethics may never see meaningful change result from their work. As you mentioned, two of the peace corps’ three named goals consist of developing relationships and exchanging cultures. Based on the name “Peace Corps”, the outcomes of these goals would appear to be world peace (or peace with the US). However, in reality, the intended outcomes are for the host countries’ populations to side with the United States in a state of conflict; there is an extreme unlikelihood that a peace corps country would willingly initiate a conflict with the United States. So what is the purpose of the peace corps? The Ugly American clearly ascribes the mission of all foreign service work to be the fight against communism (and I will go ahead and speculate that soft power was the entire reason the peace corps was created). Communist ideology is no longer a threat to American existence, and there is no cold war going on with another global power (at least to the same degree as the Cold War during the 1950’s). In modern, post-Soviet times, I have found foreign service workers and volunteers say that development should be done for development’s sake. I would argue that this a morally superior position to take, but means that the entire purpose in which the peace corps was created in the name of no longer exists. This is another reason that The Ugly American is an outdated model for the Peace Corps; there is now a guise that the Peace Corps’ intentions should be entirely charitable and the more cynical view that it exists to proliferate American soft power throughout the world is purposefully never mentioned, even to staff and volunteers within the Peace Corps. Overall, though, I really like your review and agree that it’s a must-read for anyone involved with foreign service. It definitely shaped my perception of the Peace Corps gives context to its creation which was extremely interesting. Looking forward to your next post!