The Outlier: The Unfinished Presidency Of Jimmy Carter By Kai Bird(paperback) Biography Novel

pages:784
Enjoy a great reading experience when you buy the Kindle edition of this book. Learn more about Great on Kindle, available in select categories. View Kindle Edition Note: This item is eligible for FREE Click and Collect without a minimum order subject to availability. Details An essential re-evaluation of the complex triumphs and tragedies of Jimmy Carter s presidential legacy–from the expert biographer and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of American Prometheus Four decades after Ronald Reagan s landslide win in 1980, Jimmy Carter s one-term presidency is often labeled a failure; indeed, many Americans view Carter as the only ex-president to have used the White House as a stepping-stone to greater achievements. But in retrospect the Carter political odyssey is a rich and human story, marked by both formidable accomplishments and painful political adversity. In this deeply researched, brilliantly written account, Kai Bird expertly unfolds the Carter saga as a tragic tipping point in American history. As president, Carter was not merely an outsider, but an outlier. He was the only president in a century to grow up in the heart of the Deep South, and his born-again Christianity made him the most openly religious president in memory. This outlier brought to the White House a rare mix of humility, candor–and unnerving self-confidence that neither Washington nor America was ready to embrace. Decades before today s public reckoning with the vast gulf between America s ethos and its actions, Carter looked out on a nation torn by race and demoralized by Watergate and Vietnam and prescribed a radical self-examination from which voters recoiled. The cost of his unshakable belief in doing the right thing would be a second term–and the ascendance of Reagan. In these remarkable pages, Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Bird traces the arc of Carter s administration, from his aggressive domestic agenda to his controversial foreign policy record, taking readers inside the Oval Office and through Carter s battles with both a political establishment and a Washington press corps that proved as adversarial as any foreign power. Bird shows how issues still hotly debated today–from national health care to growing inequality and racism to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict–burned at the heart of Carter s America, and consumed a president who found a moral duty in solving them. Drawing on interviews with Carter and members of his administration and recently declassified documents, Bird delivers a profound, clear-eyed evaluation of a leader whose legacy has been deeply misunderstood. The Outlier is the definitive account of an enigmatic presidency–both as it really happened and as it is remembered in the American consciousness.