"The work of this institution has only begun I want to see this faculty continue to develop in not only teaching ability, but heart power—the ability to lead and inspire I want to see the fullest opportunities furnished to students I want to see young men and women who will become effective leaders I want to see all of these things and more" face=Calibri>– Dr. John W. Carr, First President of Murray State University, April 1, 1926 When Murray State University was founded shortly after World War I, it was a modest, one-building teachers' college with a mandate to prepare better-trained educators for schools in the Jackson Purchase area of Western Kentucky. Now Murray State has grown to become a major university with nearly (or approximately) 10,000 students from all over the world. Over the past century, this institution has indelibly shaped the lives of generations of talented young people who went on to enjoy remarkable careers at NASA, the Kentucky Supreme Court, in Hollywood, the NBA, and elsewhere. In The Finest Place We Know, authors Robert L Jackson, Sarah Marie Owens, and Sean J. McLaughlin celebrate the 100-year story of Murray State University by looking back on the people, places, and events which have shaped the institution's history. This comprehensive, pictorial history features hundreds of images from the Progue Special Collections Library and is accompanied by stories that explore everything from the school's first student-produced weekly newspaper The College News that began publication on June 24, 1927, the hiring of Ernest T. Brooks, its first Black professor, in 1970, and the appointment of Dr. Kala Stroup, the first woman president of any Kentucky university. This work face=Calibri>– equal parts history and celebration – presents an in depth account of one of Kentucky's prosperous public universities.

Despite French President Charles de Gaulle's persistent efforts to constructively share French experience and use his resources to help engineer an American exit from Vietnam, the Kennedy administration responded to de Gaulle's peace initiatives with bitter silence and inaction. The administration's response ignited a series of events that dealt a massive blow to American prestige across the globe, resulting in the deaths of over fifty-eight thousand American soldiers and turning hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese citizens into refugees. This history of Franco-American relations during the Kennedy presidency explores how and why France and the US disagreed over the proper western strategy for the Vietnam War. France clearly had more direct political experience in Vietnam, but France's postwar decolonization cemented Kennedy's perception that the French were characterized by a toxic mixture of short-sightedness, stubbornness, and indifference to the collective interests of the West. At no point did the Kennedy administration give serious consideration to de Gaulle's proposals or entertain the notion of using his services as an honest broker in order to disengage from a situation that was rapidly spiraling out of control. Kennedy's Francophobia, the roots of which appear in a selection of private writings from Kennedy's undergraduate years at Harvard, biased his decision-making. The course of action Kennedy chose in 1963, a rejection of the French peace program, all but handcuffed Lyndon Johnson into formally entering a war he knew the United States had little chance of winning.