The Foreign Service Journal, November 2005

finally, a home for girls, to a successful adulthood with college degrees, a stint in the Peace Corps and a 29-year career as a Foreign Service officer. Mary Cameron Kilgour wrote this autobiographical memoir for young people and adults struggling with the impact of a chaotic or violent past, people like the children for whom she now advocates as a volunteer guardian ad litem. There is no trace of self-pity in this story. It is written simply and straightforwardly, with humor and grace, and a keen ear for dialogue. But what it conveys so poignantly is that hope and potential can indeed triumph over the past. Retired FSO Kilgour served for 29 years in USAID. She is a 1993 recipient of the Presidential Distin- guished Service Award. A writer, she is a frequent con- tributor to the Journal , and a volunteer with the Guardian ad Litem Program and Habitat for Humanity. Around the World in 80 Travel Tales Peter Dev Kurze, Hasamelis Publishing, 2004, $19.95, paperback, 335 pages (including 39 color photos). Here is a book for those in whom Mark Twain’s advice to “Explore. Dream. Discover.” reverberates per- petually. This new addition to travel literature is based on a young man’s 16-month, round-the-world odyssey to 30 countries on five continents during 2000 and 2001. The book is nicely organized into 18 sections, each containing one or more short stories or vignettes of memorable, unusual or even bizarre experiences in that region. Thus, the reader has the choice of reading from start to finish, or zeroing in on a particular coun- try or region of interest. Either way, the experience is interesting and informative. A selection of the author’s 5,500 color photographs from the journey are included in the book; all of them can be accessed online at www.80traveltales.com. The son of a retired FSO, Peter Kurze was born in Nepal and has lived in Austria, Barbados, Belgium, France, Germany, India, Japan, Morocco and the United States. He decided to undertake this trip after having worked in Tokyo for three years because the prerequisites for undertaking such a global adventure were all there: a strong desire to travel, physical and mental health and stamina, free time, financial where- withal, and a lack of restrictive commitments (personal or professional). FICTION, HISTORICAL AND OTHERWISE Vietnam When the Tanks Were Elephants Thomas J. Barnes, Xlibris, 2005, $22.99, paperback, 321 pages. The Tay Son Revolution in Vietnam, which began in 1771 and ended in 1802, was contemporane- ous with its French and American counterparts, but is virtually unknown in the Western world. Three brothers trained in the martial arts led a grass-roots movement against two entrenched shogu- nates that expanded to dominate the entire country. National stability was short-lived, however, as the ablest brother, Nguyen Hue, a Vietnamese national hero, died prematurely of fever in 1792. His successor was incapable of stemming the corruption and dissen- sion that eventually led to the dissolution and defeat of the regime. Author Thomas Barnes presents an historically accurate account of these events in this novel written, strikingly, from the first-person viewpoint of eight of the participants. The text is a complete expansion and reorientation of the author’s earlier work, Tay Son: Rebellion in 18th-Century Vietnam (Xlibris, 2000), and was written with the intent of making this important but little-known chapter in Vietnam’s history more accessible to Western audiences. Thomas J. Barnes joined the Foreign Service in 1957. Following retirement in mid-1980, after a career concentrated mainly in Southeast Asia, he worked in the field of refugee and migrant assistance. In 1996, he settled in Austin, Texas, where he has published sever- al books through Xlibris: including Southeast Asian Portraits (2002) and Anecdotes of a Vagabond: The Foreign Service, the U.N., and a Volag (2000). His Coping with Lust and the Colonel: Wartime Korea from Sokchang-ni (2000) was updated and expanded in 2005. F O C U S N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 5 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 35