Alice Spencer Geddes Lloyd was a New England woman with a mission in life. In 1916 she settled on Caney Creek in Eastern Kentucky, determined to bring higher education to this remote corner of Appalachia. The school she founded, now Alice Lloyd College, continues to serve the area and its people and to stand as a tribute to Lloyd's remarkable energy, determination, and vision.

Lloyd's program combined a rigorous academic curriculum with an intense effort to instill a sense of service in the school's graduates. This education was provided free and required only that the students abide...

For more than 35 years, the Peace Corps has pursued John F. Kennedy's vision of helping people of the Third World build a better life. Yet with the exception of a few celebrations of its early years, little effort has been made to document that organization's history. Now a former deputy director of the Peace Corps offers a first-hand look at life in the agency -- both in the field and at headquarters -- and a radical reinterpretation of its history during the Nixon and Ford administrations.

By the end of the 1960s, the Peace Corps was in disarray. Debate raged over its...