His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, a Life
Written by Jonathan Alter
Narrated by Michael Boatman
4.5/5
()
About this audiobook
Jonathan Alter tells the epic story of an enigmatic man of faith and his improbable journey from barefoot boy to global icon. Alter paints an intimate and surprising portrait of the only president since Thomas Jefferson who can fairly be called a Renaissance Man, a complex figure—ridiculed and later revered—with a piercing intelligence, prickly intensity, and biting wit beneath the patented smile. Here is a moral exemplar for our times, a flawed but underrated president of decency and vision who was committed to telling the truth to the American people.
Growing up in one of the meanest counties in the Jim Crow South, Carter is the only American president who essentially lived in three centuries: his early life on the farm in the 1920s without electricity or running water might as well have been in the nineteenth; his presidency put him at the center of major events in the twentieth; and his efforts on conflict resolution and global health set him on the cutting edge of the challenges of the twenty-first.
“One of the best in a celebrated genre of presidential biography,” (The Washington Post), His Very Best traces how Carter evolved from a timid, bookish child—raised mostly by a Black woman farmhand—into an ambitious naval nuclear engineer writing passionate, never-before-published love letters from sea to his wife and full partner, Rosalynn; a peanut farmer and civic leader whose guilt over staying silent during the civil rights movement and not confronting the white terrorism around him helped power his quest for racial justice at home and abroad; an obscure, born-again governor whose brilliant 1976 campaign demolished the racist wing of the Democratic Party and took him from zero percent to the presidency; a stubborn outsider who failed politically amid the bad economy of the 1970s and the seizure of American hostages in Iran but succeeded in engineering peace between Israel and Egypt, amassing a historic environmental record, moving the government from tokenism to diversity, setting a new global standard for human rights and normalizing relations with China among other unheralded and far-sighted achievements. After leaving office, Carter eradicated diseases, built houses for the poor, and taught Sunday school into his mid-nineties.
This “important, fair-minded, highly readable contribution” (The New York Times Book Review) will change our understanding of perhaps the most misunderstood president in American history.
Jonathan Alter
Jonathan Alter is an award-winning historian, columnist and documentary filmmaker. An MSNBC political analyst and former senior editor at Newsweek, he is the author of three New York Times bestsellers: The Center Holds: Obama and His Enemies; The Promise: President Obama, Year One; and The Defining Moment: FDR's Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope.
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Reviews for His Very Best
27 ratings5 reviews
What our readers think
Readers find this title to be a thorough and well-done biography of Jimmy Carter. It provides a multidimensional view of the man, disputing the myth of him being a terrible president. The book highlights his positive successes, such as increasing minority representation in government and protecting the environment. It also acknowledges his weaknesses, including his difficulty in distinguishing between his different roles. Overall, the biography is fair and provides a balanced perspective on Carter's presidency.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A very good biography about President Jimmy Carter. Well written by Jonathan Alter and equally well read by audiobook by Mr. Boatman.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5It is the side of jimmy I didn’t know. Can’t wait for my next book
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5It was a very well-done biography. Alter did an excellent job of revealing the full life behind the man.
First, there is an accepted view of Jimmy Carter as a nice guy (almost too nice) but a terrible president. Alter does an excellent job of disputing that myth. Jimmy Carter was a consequential president whose policies and initiatives had a real impact on the country and the world. As someone who has a keen interest in politics, I knew a lot of this, especially his record of increasing minority representation in government, including the federal bench, his work in protecting the environment including national parks, and many other positive successes during his administration like job creation and bringing inflation down, although that was credit almost exclusively given to Reagan.
Second, Alter does an excellent job of creating a multidimensional view of the man. He was gentle in his mannerisms but was tough in his negotiations and pushing his agenda. There is a sometimes-mistaken view that being aggressive, or nasty equates to being tough or even competent. Since President Carter (including immediately after), we have learned that sometimes-aggressive people are just angry because an emotionally charged electorate can be politically beneficial, if not always practical.
Finally, I observed is for all the legitimate accolades, President Carter deserves both as president and during the 40-plus years since the end of his presidency there is one area where he falls a bit short: personal relationships. He had a strained relationship with his father, including an apparent lifelong need to please his father, and did not come to grips with that until very recently. His strained relationship with his sons was an echo of his relationship with his father. To be sure, many phenomenally successful people are driven and focused and sometimes do not form or maintain personal relationships well. But Carter seems to be an extreme version of this. But for his mother and wife, he never really let anyone in, including his siblings, children, and White House staff. Moreover, his deep and abiding faith (which is genuine and has guided and helped him at every level of his life) seemed at times to be a genuine guide for his own life and a shield---sometimes to his detriment--- when dealing with others on a personal level.
His extreme discipline could be a problem, even if not intended: he left people who were a few minutes late multiple times. Yes, people should be punctual, but his approach often missed the mark, especially with family during vacations. He sometimes truly did not understand his limits, as the book often mentions.
His relationship with the ex-presidents was inimical to this. His sometimes too-hard-charging approach was so focused on the mission, the issue that I am not sure he saw them as people first. He only saw them as Presidents to finish the work he thought was important. But I think even they respect and appreciate him as President Obama was quoted in the book, despite their having a frosty relationship.
Alter’s book is an excellent examination of a complex man who was a consequential competent president of high character and whose time in office may have come at a time when the shifting view of the Presidency meant more soft skills to buttress highly technical (political and social) skills and consequently did not get the full credit he deserved in real-time.
Also, Mr. Boatman did an excellent job with the narration. It was also well done with good pacing, appropriate intonation, inflection, and emphasis. His tone gave proper seriousness to critical issues (e.g., the Iranian Hostage Crisis) and a light tone to funny stories.
I have read other books about Carter including very recently his own "An Hour Before Daylight" and this adds a multidimensional view of Carter as a person and the President.
I highly recommend this book! - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Well wri.and Narration adds much. Very fair acknowledgement of bith strengths and weaknesses. I lived through his presidency. Carter doesn't do well in disguishing among the different obligations involved in hid different roles--personsl, fsther, husband, budinessmsn, and office holder. His insistence on expressing his personal spiteful feelings didtrsctsmuch from his effectiveness. Hebis STILL effective, bug less do,
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A thorough look at Jimmy Carter's presidency from a modern lens, which I read due to the recommendation in National Public Radio's 2021 end-of-year list. While often critical and careful for example to include important (and perhaps otherwise often overlooked) perspectives like his originally flawed contributions to American civil rights discourse, it is also somewhat subjective and partisan. It generally argues that his presidency was far more successful than assumed by 1980, when viewed with the benefit of hindsight, and that his post-presidency is in fact almost as, or equally as - not more - worthwhile. The look at the Iran hostage crisis and the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, as well as other topics, feel timely during the invasion of Ukraine and the energy crises in many countries of the world in spring 2022.