All You Need is Love: The History of the Peace Corps

In the 1960s many Americans attempted to redefine their nation's identity both at home and abroad while the Peace Corps was taking place. Nothing reflected this better than the Peace Corps. In All You Need is Love Elizabeth Cobbs-Hoffman explores the history of the Peace Corps, and reveals, that by tracing its development in the last forty years, one can gain a better understanding on how it became the ideal institution of social reform in the 1960s. Cobbs-Hoffman begins her story by exploring the background of American idealism. She declares that the United States, since its founding, has perceived itself as a crusading nation whose mission has been to promote the spread of its form of "benevolent" democracy. This however, has often clashed with the reality that has been said. This disagreement has often made Americans uncomfortable with their role in power politics, and as a consequence Cobbs-Hoffman asserts that, "Paradoxically when the United States has been at its most expansionist, it has been most subject to idealism”. The late 1950's and early 1960's was just that period. Twenty years after World War II the country was able to experience an era of economic growth, and increased military and political power.

This though created conflicting emotions for many Americans, whose pride in this strength, was matched by their historical view that power had corrupted their virtue. Dismayed by the consequence of nationalism and racism in Nazi Germany, many Americans took to universalism, and its belief that all humans deserved the same rights, regardless of nationality. McCarthyism, and the obvious racism of the 1950's, made Americans engage in their vision of what kind of country they were living in to stop all of this. With the...

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...was so many different approaches to the Cold War and why it was so confusing to co-exist at times.

Works Cited

Cobbs, Hoffman Elizabeth. All You Need Is Love: the Peace Corps and the Spirit of the 1960s. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1998. Print.

Francis, Sam. "Put A Little Love In Your Heart - Accompaniment." CLASSROOM CLASSICS - ACCOMPANIMENT FOR ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PERFORMANCES AND CLASSROOM SINGING. Web. 24 Mar. 2015.

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Gorn, Elliott J., Randy Roberts, and Terry D. Bilhartz. Constructing the American Past: a Source Book of a People's History. Seventh ed. Vol. 2. New York: Pearson Longman, 2008. Print.

Rosenberg, Jennifer. "Berlin Wall - The Rise and Fall of the Berlin Wall." 20th Century History. Web. 24 Mar. 2015. .