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A review by adkwriter15
His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, a Life by Jonathan Alter
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.