Dilettante: Tales of How a Small-Town Boy Became a Diplomat Managing U.S. Foreign Assistance

By: Clifford H. Brown

This book is a memoir of a small-town American kid who worked on farms, tugboats, railroads, ran away to sea for a year on an oceanographic vessel, finally finished college, won a fellowship to travel in Latin America for a year, went to law school, became a partner in a Beverly Hills law firm, and then gave up a lucrative career to join the U.S. Agency for International Development (“USAID”). It is filled with American country and laborer philosophy, served with a healthy dose of juvenility and plain, old fun. It will interest anyone thinking life in small-town America has become a dead end. Readers may be keen to read the second half of the stories, as and when they become available.