His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, a Life

A popular analysis has emerged, even among some people who admire Carter. "He's an admirable man and certainly had the best post-presidency ever, but he a) was too much of a micromanager, b) brought small timers and a chip on his shoulder to Washington and couldn't get much done, and/or c) was a weak and ineffectual president who was over-matched by the events of the day.Alter's brilliant biography shows how far off the mark this analysis is. Carter was dead serious and a tough cookie. I worked on Capitol Hill throughout his entire term and, like most smart-a** young staffers, I had this idea that "we'll show these Georgians how to do business in the big city." Grudgingly, over the course of his term, we came to a recognition that he had a first rate staff and was doing a good job.As Alter's book demonstrates, Carter had at least three triumphs in foreign affairs, any one of which any president before or after would have considered an adornment to his administration. Most obvious, achieving the first and only lasting peace in the Middle East. Israel had had four wars with Egypts and other neighbors in the previous 30 years and none in the 42 since. And that was almost entirely a result of his personal effort. Maybe more impressive was the Panama canal treaty, which spared us untold grief in Latin America. Negotiating the treaty was a proud accomplishment, but getting it through the Senate -- the smart money said "dead on arrival" -- was a lifetime accomplishment. Finally, Carter's focus on human rights set a counterpoint to the realpolitick "sure he's an SOB, but he's our SOB" brand of foreign policy and put us on the right side of history.The book also chronicles Carter's early years and his admirable life since. It is an outstanding portrait of a president whose reputation is going to grow over the coming years.

I see recommendations here from Jimmy Carter fans. But liking Carter isn’t necessary to like this book. As a fan of U.S. history, especially events that still affect us today, this book gave me information I haven’t seen anywhere else. Background on Israel-Egypt peace, the Iranian hostage case, civil rights in 1950s and 1960s, human rights as an international topic of conversation.So many interesting details! Example: the mess-ups behind allowing the Shah of Iran into the U.S., without which there may not have been the Embassy hostage situation. Example: the intense resistance to school integration after the 1950s Brown Supreme Court decision. Every inch of the way, even giving used typewriters to a Black school. And Carter mostly dodged integration controversies for years, as he started his political climb. Example: never heard that Habitat for Humanity had its roots in an idealistic black & white (integrated) farm community established a few miles from Carter’s farm in Georgia, an area really not looking to change.Carter’s accomplishments seem to come from exceptional self-discipline. And values from a different era. Values he got from his family and the Navy, no surprise there. But also, from Rachel Clark, a black illiterate woman who helped manage the family farm and raise Carter, who he says he knew better than his mother.A small thing, I appreciated the dozen pages or so of photos.Pretty sure this will be THE book on Carter, not to be superseded, ever. Why? Two reasons. Because the author spent five years on it. And because he was able to do loads of interviews with Carter, family members, and others who won’t be around to give testimony in a few years.Seven hundred pages took me a while to get through, but I didn’t think “this is too much detail.”Wonder what Carter thinks of this book? History buffs: get it.

For anyone who thinks Jimmy Carter was a whimp needs to read this book. He Is as tough as nails. I did not vote for him but I have a clearer understanding how he made it to the White House.

This is a triumph of history and biography. Alter does a fine job of honoring Carter with deep compassion without being blind to his limitations. The Iran hostage saga was tough to read only because I remember that horror and humiliation all too well. Alter brings to life the overt racism of Jim Crow Georgia of the 1950s and 1960s. Carter’s political emergence (and personal evolution) in that most strange period was striking, threading the needle of the norms of the day. Black Lives Matter notwithstanding, we sure have made progress since then. The descriptions if the Camp David negotiations and accords were riveting. I had not known of the complexity and the skill and energy applied to bring that to success. The history of Habitat for humanity was fun. Finally, Alter draws out Carter’s legacy in forcing human rights into the political dialogue, which lasted in one form or another from 1976 to 2016. Carter brought that to us as a foundational purpose of the American experiment as we faced the world. Carter was an under appreciated and under biographied fellow. Alter fixed that. It is an important contribution. Read it.

This is a gift for my Mom who thinks of Jimmy as a hero. No matter what party or your opinion of his presidency you will have to agree he is an exceptional man and one of whom America should be extremely proud.

I read US history compulsively and especially presidential biographies and was delighted when at last a comprehensive biography of Jimmy Carter came out.The book is very detailed and covers all of his life extensivly from his youth in Georgia, time in the Navy, Governorship, and of course his presidency and long post presidency.As the book shows it is wrong to condemn his one term as a failure. He had several impressive acheivements in the Oval Office including handing back the Panama Canal, revising energy policy, strenghtening the vice-presidency and probably the most famous, the Camp David accords. Unfortunately while he was supremely qualified from a cerebal and work ethic point of view for the office he lacked the political skills to play the game well, something his successor and vanquisher in 1980 was supremely good at. Jimmy Carter told the American people what they needed to hear and Ronald Regan told them what they wanted to hear. It's possible his re-election campaign in 1980 was always doomed because of the rise of the religious right which Reagan so effectively tapped into and the what if of that election would make great sci-fi.A first rate book of an excellent (if prickly) human being

I have always felt that Jimmy Carter needed a truly comprehensive biography and here it is at last. The writing is clear and precise and while the author is sympathetic to the 39th President he does not pull his punches in writing about the failures of both the man and his political career. Makes the case for the Carter Presidency being much like the man himself that is too say complicated and hard to easily define, both underrated in policy success and a political failure that shattered what remained of the new deal coalition.Overall I found this to be an informative and engaging read and would recommend highly.

It is very satisfying in these times to read this -I think first biography about a person that is so decent and ambitious oriented to well meaning goals as an ordinary citizen, governor and president of the US. It gives some hope for a great nation. Jimmy Carter could even be role model for a new president of the US. So, this book is very valuable at the present times.

At the end of “His Very Best”, Jonathan Alter’s biography of President Jimmy Carter, I cried.I cried not just because the book seems to me an astonishingly accurate, deeply compassionate feat of capturing our most profound, most mercurial president, so that he fairly stands from the page. I wept for the superb craft of this book. As biographer myself, Alter’s is the literary prestidigitation I work hard to achieve and in my eyes, never quite manage to do, and it is a joy just to pick up such a well-built, compelling, insightful book.But I also had tears because Jimmy Carter is a beautiful human being.My Southern grandmother, astute and involved with politics, thought so. When she cast her vote for him in 1976, she told me, too young to vote, that she was doing so for both of us.That gave me a wonderful memory to share with Jimmy when I met him and Rosalynn in Plains in 2011, when I was in town to meet the family and research my 2014 biography of Lillian Carter, Jimmy’s irrepressible mother, from whom he inherited more gifts and complexities than I think even he realizes. Jimmy especially loved hearing what my grandmother did the morning after the 1980 election. Opening her local paper to a front page spread of photos of Carter and Reagan - the former in tears, the latter grinning - my grandmother phoned the editor and canceled her subscription, saying “Do not ever leave that rabid trash on my doorstep again!” I will never forget how Jimmy beamed across the table at me. It was a smile of delicious agreement with my long departed grandmother. It was gratitude for her spunk and her principles. It was also somewhat sad, as if to say, “If only I’d had more Nina Strawsers back in 1980.” If only he’d had.Jimmy Carter is a delightful man, possessed of an impish humor; and he can be frightening, for he doesn’t suffer fools, which anyone on whom he has fixed what Alter describes as Carter’s “icy blues” will no doubt remember.Jimmy has to be better, always, 24/7, not so much more than other people as better than himself, his most challenging opponent. I have met lots of compassionate, courageous individuals seeking to make a better world, but none with the abiding conviction, as powerful as his religious faith, that doing good will eventually wash away error and, dare I say, sin itself, if sin can be defined as greed, graft, hate and, worse, indifference.What I think most drew my tears, on finishing this book, was the realization, in this honourable, brilliant, complex man’s life, that our better angels are rarely neat and tidy, indeed almost never, and that those working in league with them must allow themselves to be guided down a rough, almost impassible road, one that does not promise a happy ending.Jimmy’s angels are so terrible as an army with banners. And they have not always conquered their opposite – those sins, greed, graft, hate and indifference. Sometimes even Jimmy Carter’s angels are vanquished by darkness. It is moving and frustrating that so good a man, so honest a man, so brilliant a man, should have to fight so hard. What are better angels for, anyway?Alter’s telling of the tale is, thus, very much warts and all. This may grate on folks who know and love our 39th President and have seen him cruelly and ignorantly vilified by people who are much his inferiors. But if Jimmy Carter stands for anything singular, among all the many things he has rolled up his sleeves for, it is truth, his blessing and his curse; his protection and weakness, and his and our salvation. We have seen over the past four years what blatant devotion to untruth, and to greed, graft, hate and indifference, can do to a nation and a people.Jimmy Carter won’t be with us forever. But his example, a true shining city on a hill, will be here, if our own better angels can convince us to keep and hold it.Read this book. It could not appear at a more opportune, and critical, and necessary time.

Jonathan Alter brings to life a man who was unfairly vilified by the media if the time, as well as his own political party. Alter's account relates to the reader how a man of any means can aspire to the American presidency and attain that goal. He also makes the reader aware of Carter's accomplishments in the White House. America is a better country because of Jimmy Carter. A riveting read.....