Conversations with Jimmy Carter

by Tom Head (Editor), Jimmy Carter

When Jimmy Carter (b. 1924) lost the presidency in 1980, it would have been reasonable to think his public life was coming to an end. The moderate, evangelical, blue-jeans-wearing peanut farmer made an unlikely governor of Georgia, and an even less likely winner of the vicious 1976 Democratic presidential primary. Coming into an era of American politics where evangelical and rural voters became increasingly identified with the Reagan revolution, and the Democratic Party’s identity became increasingly secular and urban, he did not fit neatly into the political categories of the emerging decade. But it was not politics that would define President Carter in the it would be his humble Christian faith and his enduring commitment to the poor, to peace, and to human rights.

In Conversations with Jimmy Carter , ten interviews, drawn from Carter’s five decades as a national public figure and author, capture the complexities and contradictions that have defined him—and that have helped to both reflect and shape the highest aspirations of the American experiment.

172 pages, Hardcover

Published July 31, 2023

About the author

Author of It's Your World So Change It (Que/Pearson), Civil Liberties A Beginner's Guide (Oneworld UK), and 22 other nonfiction books on a wide range of topics; About.com guide to civil liberties.

Reviews

[Sam Bruce · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good collection of interviews, I think it gives a good view into both the views of and perceptions about Carter as times have progressed from his campaign to his time as an elder-statesman.