A memoir of dramatic moments in recent history. On June 4, 1989, Joanne Grady Huskey was in Tiananmen Square and witnessed the horror of a government attacking its own people. On August 7, 1998, she was in the basement of the American Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, with her two small children when al Qaeda bombed the building. After September 11, 2001, having just returned to the United States after years overseas, she responded to the atrocities in New York and Washington. She recounts her experiences living and working in China during the 1989 “Beijing Spring” and, fifteen years later, in Taiwan. In between came postings to Chennai, India, and Nairobi, where she helped Kenyan victims after the Embassy bombing.

Huskey co-founded Global Adjustments in India, a cross-cultural training company, and the American International School of Chennai. Earlier, she was International Director of VSA Arts at the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington. For her work with disabled children in China she was awarded the Secretary of State’s Outstanding Volunteer Award for East Asia and the Pacific.