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jgavin710's review against another edition
5.0
I absolutely adored this book. It is EXHAUSTIVE (so so long), but I didn’t find it dragged at all. It was very insightful and I learned so so much. I found the parts on Panama, energy, and the elections to be the most interesting. I even teared up on the parts about Carter coming to terms with losing. This is definitely a new favorite for me.
adkwriter15's review against another edition
informative
reflective
slow-paced
4.25
The field of Jimmy Carter biographies has a king, as far as I'm concerned. This behemoth is incredibly detailed, down to policy decisions or personality quirks that I know would be absent in a briefer work. It also gives decent, if not as detailed, information on Carter's post-presidency, which - really - seems to be what many people know him for. However, Alter's project is clearly to show that Carter's presidency deserves to be delved into with detail and care because he was, in some ways, a president ahead of his time. However, Alter is just as honest about his presidential and personality flaws. The four-star rating just goes down to structure, which can make a huge difference in a book this large. While mostly chronological, when it hits the presidency and post-presidency, it goes issue by issue (in order of introduction in Carter's White House) in a way that makes a) listening to the audiobook and b) listening to the audiobook in 20-30 minute bursts on commute very difficult. I started to feel less and less grounded in a linear narrative as the book went on. I would be curious to see how Kai Bird's The Outlier handles similar material, since it is almost as long but focuses just on the presidency, but I think I'm going to need some time to recover from the amount of detail in this one.
rw3's review against another edition
2.0
It's good to finally have a biography of Jimmy Carter. However, this is basically a clip job.
It's useful as an exploration of the public record.
It's useful as an exploration of the public record.
julieb's review against another edition
5.0
“We told the truth. We obeyed the law. We kept the peace.”
Damn, good journalists can write. This is an excellent, comprehensive, fully objective biography of a great man, a good president.
Amy Carter's cat in the White House? Misty Malarky Ying Yang
Craft breweries. Stephen Breyer & Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
The Global 2000 Report to the President (climate change! in 1977 - read it here: https://www.cartercenter.org/resources/pdfs/pdf-archive/global2000reporttothepresident--enteringthe21stcentury-01011991.pdf
I totally missed the Mattie J.T. Stepanek story! https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2004/06/29/celebrating-the-courage-of-mattie/7c505b9f-f89e-4648-a7a9-20fd5aa08686/
And Carter's farewell address: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rf01aE7lqxs
Yes, it's long. But damn it reads like a well-crafted novel.
Damn, good journalists can write. This is an excellent, comprehensive, fully objective biography of a great man, a good president.
Amy Carter's cat in the White House? Misty Malarky Ying Yang
Craft breweries. Stephen Breyer & Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
The Global 2000 Report to the President (climate change! in 1977 - read it here: https://www.cartercenter.org/resources/pdfs/pdf-archive/global2000reporttothepresident--enteringthe21stcentury-01011991.pdf
I totally missed the Mattie J.T. Stepanek story! https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2004/06/29/celebrating-the-courage-of-mattie/7c505b9f-f89e-4648-a7a9-20fd5aa08686/
And Carter's farewell address: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rf01aE7lqxs
Yes, it's long. But damn it reads like a well-crafted novel.
tdowner's review against another edition
3.0
I have lots of mixed feelings about this book. First, it's LONG: 800 pages, and only the last 40 or 50 detail his post-presidency years. The author seemed to be unbiased in his analysis of Carter's strengths and weaknesses. He clearly states when he felt that Carter or his advisors made poor choices, but also explains why many of the things the Carter administration was blamed for were the result of events that were beyond his control. There were so many "aha" moments, where i learned some small thing that Carter did for our country that I didn't know before.
Overall, I enjoyed this book, but got bogged down in the political minutia, and was disappointed that the second half of Carter's life wasn't a bigger part of the story.
Overall, I enjoyed this book, but got bogged down in the political minutia, and was disappointed that the second half of Carter's life wasn't a bigger part of the story.