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

challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

An excellent and comprehensive biography of Jimmy Carter that I read in conjunction with a visit to the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library. Particularly interesting to me were the accounts of Carter’s childhood and the influences of his very different parents, his time in the Naval Academy and the role the Navy (and Admiral Rickover) played in his life, and the account of his Presidential years, which I lived through as a high school student. The accounts of how Carter, known as liberal on race relations, navigated the early campaigns in 1960s Georgia are a lesson in doing what is expedient in the moment (using to segregationists to get elected ) for the greater good (calling for an end to racial bias in Georgia) -that component was also instructive (and not featured in the Carter Library). I would have liked a bit more on the post Presidential period and while Carter’s complex relationships with former Presidents are mentioned at the end of the book, I would have enjoyed more on that topic. Alter is a master biographer and he portrays the complexity of Carter while providing an excellent overview of the history that provided the backstop of Carter’s life.