Presidential Biographies: Jimmy Carter
Like John Quincy Adams or Herbert Hoover, Jimmy Carter is one of those Presidents who wasn't so popular while in office, but one for whom admiration grew in the post-presidency. Known for his humanitarian pursuits, including his work with Habitat for Humanity, Carter is also admired for the fact that, God willing, this October he may become the first centenarian former president. This is far from certain however, as Carter is presently suffering from an undisclosed terminal illness and he has decided to stay at home and receive hospice care instead of additional medical intervention.
Carter was born and raised in Plains, Georgia, the same community in which he is spending his retirement. Up until recently he would regularly attend his local church where he would teach Sunday school Carter graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1946 and joined the U.S. Navy's submarine service, where he worked under famed Admiral Hyman Rickover. His first loyalty was to his family however, and Carter left the Navy to return home afterward and take over his family's peanut farm business.
Despite living in the deep south during the era of heavy Jim Crow times, Carter was vocal in his opposition to racial segregation and he supported the growing civil rights movement. He became politically active within the Democratic Party. and served in the Georgia State Senate from 1963 to 1967. Carter was elected as his state's Governor and served from 1971 to 1975. After the resignation of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford's pardon of Nixon, Carter read the political tea leaves correctly, concluding that voter mistrust of Washington politicians was at an all-time high and that a political outsider had the best chance of becoming President. Even though he was not well known outside of Georgia, Carter ran for and won the Democratic Party's nomination for President. He defeated the incumbent Republican President Gerald Ford in the 1976 presidential election.
But things did not go well for Carter as President, and his posture as an outsider made it difficult for him to work with Congress. Carter began his presidency by pardoning all Vietnam War draft evaders on his second day in office. He created a national energy policy that called for conservation, price control, and gas rationing. He had success on the international stage as he concluded the Camp David Accords, the Panama Canal Treaties, and the second round of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks.
But he had trouble on two fronts: the economy and with rising gas prices as the result of policies of the OPEC nations. On the economic front he faced "stagflation," the combined one-two punch of inflation with a sluggish economy. He established the U.S. Department of Energy and the Department of Education, and was seen as creating a government that was too intrusive. Then, at the end of his presidency, the 1979-1981 Iran hostage crisis hit, along with the 1979 energy crisis, the Three Mile Island accident, the Nicaraguan Revolution, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. To address the latter problem, Carter imposed a grain embargo against the Soviets that seemed to hurt American farmers as much as the Soviets. He boycotted the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. Efforts to rescue the hostages failed, making Carter look weak and ineffective. In the 1980 Presidential election Carter barely fended off a challenge for his party's nomination from Senator Ted Kennedy, but hHe lost the 1980 presidential election in a landslide to Ronald Reagan.
After leaving the presidency, Carter established the Carter Center to promote and expand human rights and in 2002 he received a Nobel Peace Prize for his work with the Center, He traveled extensively to conduct peace negotiations, monitor elections, and help in the fight against infectious diseases. He became a key figure in the nonprofit housing organization Habitat for Humanity and wrote numerous books on subjects ranging from political memoirs to faith to poetry. He wrote two books on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in which he criticizes Israel's treatment of Palestinians, calling it "apartheid." Carter's post-presidency is the longest in U.S. history.
My choice for best biography of Carter is probably Jonathan Alter's 2021 book His Very Best: Jimmy Carter - A Life. Up until recently, Carter has been a difficult President to biograph because he has been so active in his retirement, notwithstanding his age. In fact many of the Carter biographies refer to his life as an "unfinished presidency," and that phrase is used in the titles of two recent books: Douglas Brinkley's 1998 book The Unfinished Presidency: Jimmy Carter's Journey Beyond the White House, and Kai Bird's more recent 2021 book The Outlier: The Unfinished Presidency of Jimmy Carter.
The University of Kansas Press's American Presidency series volume about Carter's Presidency was written by Burton Kaufman and Scott Kaufman, and published in 2006, called The Presidency of James Earl Carter Jr. Stuart Eisenstadt has also written a book about Carter's time as President called President Carter: The White House Years, published in 2018. Carter himself wrote a memoir of his time as President called White House Diary, published in 2010.
The University of Kansas Press's Presidential Election Series tells the story of Carter's victory over Gerald Ford in 1976 in its volume written by Daniel K. Williams and published in 2020 called The Election of the Evangelical: Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, and the Presidential Contest of 1976. There are two good books that tell the story of Ted Kennedy's attempt to unseat Carter as the Democratic Party's presidential nominee in 1980. One is Timothy Stanley's 2010 book Kennedy vs. Carter: The 1980 Battle for the Democratic Party's Soul. The other is the more recent 2019 book by Jon Ward called Camelot's End: Kennedy vs. Carter and the Fight That Broke the Democratic Party.
Carter has been a prolific writer, and besides his White House diary, he has also authored over 30 other books. Some of these include: Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President (1982); Living Faith (1996); The Virtues of Aging (1998); Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis (2005); Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid (2006); A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power (2014); and A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety (2015).
Jimmy Carter is probably the most beloved of the living former presidents, and even in this time of intense polarization in politics, he engenders respect even from many Republicans. His record as president is another story, and he scores low marks in rankings of presidents, though he does get points for doing more for middle east peace than probably any other president. Were the challenges he faced (high energy prices, inflation, a sluggish economy, a hostage crisis) too much for Carter, or were they too much for any president in the post-Watergate era when the power of the Presidency was significantly weakened? Partisans will have differing opinions, but this is a subject that even the most objective historians can find reason to disagree.
Carter was born and raised in Plains, Georgia, the same community in which he is spending his retirement. Up until recently he would regularly attend his local church where he would teach Sunday school Carter graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1946 and joined the U.S. Navy's submarine service, where he worked under famed Admiral Hyman Rickover. His first loyalty was to his family however, and Carter left the Navy to return home afterward and take over his family's peanut farm business.
Despite living in the deep south during the era of heavy Jim Crow times, Carter was vocal in his opposition to racial segregation and he supported the growing civil rights movement. He became politically active within the Democratic Party. and served in the Georgia State Senate from 1963 to 1967. Carter was elected as his state's Governor and served from 1971 to 1975. After the resignation of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford's pardon of Nixon, Carter read the political tea leaves correctly, concluding that voter mistrust of Washington politicians was at an all-time high and that a political outsider had the best chance of becoming President. Even though he was not well known outside of Georgia, Carter ran for and won the Democratic Party's nomination for President. He defeated the incumbent Republican President Gerald Ford in the 1976 presidential election.
But things did not go well for Carter as President, and his posture as an outsider made it difficult for him to work with Congress. Carter began his presidency by pardoning all Vietnam War draft evaders on his second day in office. He created a national energy policy that called for conservation, price control, and gas rationing. He had success on the international stage as he concluded the Camp David Accords, the Panama Canal Treaties, and the second round of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks.
But he had trouble on two fronts: the economy and with rising gas prices as the result of policies of the OPEC nations. On the economic front he faced "stagflation," the combined one-two punch of inflation with a sluggish economy. He established the U.S. Department of Energy and the Department of Education, and was seen as creating a government that was too intrusive. Then, at the end of his presidency, the 1979-1981 Iran hostage crisis hit, along with the 1979 energy crisis, the Three Mile Island accident, the Nicaraguan Revolution, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. To address the latter problem, Carter imposed a grain embargo against the Soviets that seemed to hurt American farmers as much as the Soviets. He boycotted the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. Efforts to rescue the hostages failed, making Carter look weak and ineffective. In the 1980 Presidential election Carter barely fended off a challenge for his party's nomination from Senator Ted Kennedy, but hHe lost the 1980 presidential election in a landslide to Ronald Reagan.
After leaving the presidency, Carter established the Carter Center to promote and expand human rights and in 2002 he received a Nobel Peace Prize for his work with the Center, He traveled extensively to conduct peace negotiations, monitor elections, and help in the fight against infectious diseases. He became a key figure in the nonprofit housing organization Habitat for Humanity and wrote numerous books on subjects ranging from political memoirs to faith to poetry. He wrote two books on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in which he criticizes Israel's treatment of Palestinians, calling it "apartheid." Carter's post-presidency is the longest in U.S. history.
My choice for best biography of Carter is probably Jonathan Alter's 2021 book His Very Best: Jimmy Carter - A Life. Up until recently, Carter has been a difficult President to biograph because he has been so active in his retirement, notwithstanding his age. In fact many of the Carter biographies refer to his life as an "unfinished presidency," and that phrase is used in the titles of two recent books: Douglas Brinkley's 1998 book The Unfinished Presidency: Jimmy Carter's Journey Beyond the White House, and Kai Bird's more recent 2021 book The Outlier: The Unfinished Presidency of Jimmy Carter.
The University of Kansas Press's American Presidency series volume about Carter's Presidency was written by Burton Kaufman and Scott Kaufman, and published in 2006, called The Presidency of James Earl Carter Jr. Stuart Eisenstadt has also written a book about Carter's time as President called President Carter: The White House Years, published in 2018. Carter himself wrote a memoir of his time as President called White House Diary, published in 2010.
The University of Kansas Press's Presidential Election Series tells the story of Carter's victory over Gerald Ford in 1976 in its volume written by Daniel K. Williams and published in 2020 called The Election of the Evangelical: Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, and the Presidential Contest of 1976. There are two good books that tell the story of Ted Kennedy's attempt to unseat Carter as the Democratic Party's presidential nominee in 1980. One is Timothy Stanley's 2010 book Kennedy vs. Carter: The 1980 Battle for the Democratic Party's Soul. The other is the more recent 2019 book by Jon Ward called Camelot's End: Kennedy vs. Carter and the Fight That Broke the Democratic Party.
Carter has been a prolific writer, and besides his White House diary, he has also authored over 30 other books. Some of these include: Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President (1982); Living Faith (1996); The Virtues of Aging (1998); Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis (2005); Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid (2006); A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power (2014); and A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety (2015).
Jimmy Carter is probably the most beloved of the living former presidents, and even in this time of intense polarization in politics, he engenders respect even from many Republicans. His record as president is another story, and he scores low marks in rankings of presidents, though he does get points for doing more for middle east peace than probably any other president. Were the challenges he faced (high energy prices, inflation, a sluggish economy, a hostage crisis) too much for Carter, or were they too much for any president in the post-Watergate era when the power of the Presidency was significantly weakened? Partisans will have differing opinions, but this is a subject that even the most objective historians can find reason to disagree.