Don Kasprzak

Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope by the husband/wife team of Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. Nicholas is a two time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, in addition he has been a finalist seven times while Sheryl is also a Pulitzer winner.

Nicholas in fact, grew up on a sheep and cherry farm near Yamhill, Oregon and his hometown is the cornerstone of this book. Subsequently he graduated from Harvard and holds a law degree from Oxford, while Sheryl graduated from Cornell and holds an MPA from Princeton and an MBA from Harvard.

In addition, Sheryl and Nicholas have co-authored China Wakes: The Struggle for the Soul of a Rising Power and Thunder from the East: Portrait of a Rising Asia. Furthermore, Sheryl wrote her third best-seller Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide in 2009.

Nicholas did not qualify to run for Governor in Oregon in 2022 due to his residence in NYC. His family still owns their farm in Oregon. I certainly hope he runs for office in the future. This book obviously reveals they hold a solid understanding of the challenges and opportunities confronting our country.

Tightrope should be difficult book to fully digest. The impact around our local community and our country are certainly profound. Likewise, Tightrope documents a real world view of where we are heading, and it is not all too positive.

Life is not a box of chocolates

Chapter One begins with a simple message as Nicholas reflects upon the kids he rode the school bus while growing up. In fact, one quickly becomes aware of how families across our country have struggled, faltered, and died just like the kids on bus number six.

Furthermore, this book addresses a deep level of concerns for America today: homelessness, isolation, obesity, depression, unemployment, drugs, alcoholism, incarceration, diabetics and suicide. Tightrope on the other hand, demonstrates how government programs can be very helpful to address long standing inequities at the federal to local levels.

The Origins of the Vietnam War by Fredrik Logevall. He is a Professor of History at Harvard University. His book, Embers of War won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize.

Previously, Fredrik taught at UC Santa Barbara and co-founded the University of California, Santa Barbara Center for Cold War Studies. In 2004 he began teaching at Cornell University. In addition, from 2006-07 was a Mellon Senior Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge. He is an associate of the London School of Economics IDEAS Cold War Studies Programme.

This publication is rather brief, yet delivers impactful, easy reading. This short work should be considered mandatory for high school curriculum.

Part One looks at the First Vietnam war, between the French and Vietminh. He provides the French historical view of attempting to simply gain credibility and new markets. Their military, certainly humiliated by Prussia in the late 1970s and both World Wars sought victory. In addition, French financial and business interests needed to create new markets.

Fredrick follows up in Part Two, providing the foundation for America’s entry into Indochina from the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu to July 1965 under President Johnson. This serves everyone well by simply introducing the research to support America’s position of continued war across Indochina. By today, all the major players in this timeframe have died. In addition, documents classified during this timeframe are now available.