IPED 2021-2022 Lecture Series: The History of USAID

Come hear John Norris speak about his new book, Enduring Struggle: The History of the U.S. Agency for International Development and America’s Uneasy Transformation of the World. This book recounts with candor and thoughtful insight the successes and failures of America’s principal foreign assistance agency from its creation by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 through the administrations of the 10 presidents who succeeded him over the past 60 years.

Kennedy envisioned the Agency for International Development as an important actor in a shared struggle against “tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself.” This book tells the story of how the agency has endured through changing views about the role of development in U.S. foreign policy, differing priorities and expectations of presidents, political controversies, competing theories of how to achieve economic and social progress, scientific breakthroughs, and persistent efforts far from the headlines of many who toiled over decades to help make the world a better place.