Path to Freedom: My Story of Perseverance

Little about Conrad Taylor's upbringingin a remote mining town in Guyana, South America, prepared him for West Point -at the height of the Vietnam War. An extraordinary opportunity for most, thehighly-regimented United States Military Academy was a life-changer for him. Enduringculture shock and surviving rude awakenings hardened the rigorous West PointExperience. And, Third World politics after West Point - because of West Point -tested it severely. The truth-is-stranger-than-fiction memoir has a simpleproposition. Fly-or-die!
 
Award-winning "PATH to FREEDOM: My Story ofPerseverance" describes what happened upon Taylor's return to a governmentturned repressive, anti-American, and paranoid - overnight. The Soviet-leaning,Cold-War-era dictatorship feared regime change. Its power-hungry leadersobsessed about him being a spy for the United States. His was the impossibletask of proving that he was not - or else!
 
The historically-accurate book provides a unique prism through which to see thecultural trauma of emigration, the unique experience that is West Point, thepersonal side of Cold-War-era geopolitics, and the mayhem of Third Worldpolitics. The view will be nostalgic for some, shocking to many, andenlightening for others. Its subtly-threaded love story will enchant - at the very least.

The Smithsonian Institute selected the memoir for its Anacostia Museum Library as a reference on the history and culture of peoples of African descent in the Western Hemisphere. If you love nonfiction, which reads like a novel, "PATH to FREEDOM: My Story of Perseverance" is for you.