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Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter #1
JIMMY AND ROSALYNN CARTER VOLUME ONE
Covering their lives from childhood to the end of the Georgia governorship, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter is one of the few major biographies of an American president that pays significant attention to the First Lady. So deeply were their lives and aspirations intertwined, a close friend once "You can't really understand Jimmy Carter unless you know Rosalynn." The story of one is the story of the other.
To recount their remarkable lives, E. Stanly Godbold, Jr. draws on academic and military records, the governor's correspondence, the recollections of the Carters themselves, as well as original, unpublished interviews with a wide variety of participants in the Carters' political and personal lives. The book reveals a man who was far more complex than the peanut farmer of popular myth, a man who cited both Reinhold Niebuhr and Bob Dylan as early influences on his legal philosophy, was heir to a sizable fortune, and who, with the help of Rosalynn, built a lucrative agribusiness. Nicknamed "Hotshot" by his father, Carter was the first president born in a hospital, rode a motorcycle before entering politics, counted Tolstoy, Dylan Thomas, William Faulkner, and James Agee among his favorite authors, and claimed his wife Rosalynn as the most influential person in his life.
Volume I in this two-volume biography details how the Carters rose to power, managed their private and public lives, governed Georgia, and seized control of the national Democratic party. The cast of colorful characters includes "Miss Allie" Smith, "Mr. Earl" and "Miss Lillian," brother Billy, Rachel Clark, Admiral Rickover, George Wallace, Lester Maddox, Richard Nixon, daughter Amy, Charles Kirbo, Hamilton Jordan, Jody Powell, and many more. It is a sweeping, Faulknerian tale of individuals who would change the image of the South in the national mind and the role of the South in the presidency. Indeed, Carter shocked the state of Georgia and the entire country by calling for an end to racial discrimination in 1971, thus launching his national political career.
Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter neither sanctifies nor vilifies the Carters but offers instead an even-handed, brilliantly researched, and utterly absorbing account of two ordinary people whose lives together took them to the heights of power and public service in America.
To recount their remarkable lives, E. Stanly Godbold, Jr. draws on academic and military records, the governor's correspondence, the recollections of the Carters themselves, as well as original, unpublished interviews with a wide variety of participants in the Carters' political and personal lives. The book reveals a man who was far more complex than the peanut farmer of popular myth, a man who cited both Reinhold Niebuhr and Bob Dylan as early influences on his legal philosophy, was heir to a sizable fortune, and who, with the help of Rosalynn, built a lucrative agribusiness. Nicknamed "Hotshot" by his father, Carter was the first president born in a hospital, rode a motorcycle before entering politics, counted Tolstoy, Dylan Thomas, William Faulkner, and James Agee among his favorite authors, and claimed his wife Rosalynn as the most influential person in his life.
Volume I in this two-volume biography details how the Carters rose to power, managed their private and public lives, governed Georgia, and seized control of the national Democratic party. The cast of colorful characters includes "Miss Allie" Smith, "Mr. Earl" and "Miss Lillian," brother Billy, Rachel Clark, Admiral Rickover, George Wallace, Lester Maddox, Richard Nixon, daughter Amy, Charles Kirbo, Hamilton Jordan, Jody Powell, and many more. It is a sweeping, Faulknerian tale of individuals who would change the image of the South in the national mind and the role of the South in the presidency. Indeed, Carter shocked the state of Georgia and the entire country by calling for an end to racial discrimination in 1971, thus launching his national political career.
Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter neither sanctifies nor vilifies the Carters but offers instead an even-handed, brilliantly researched, and utterly absorbing account of two ordinary people whose lives together took them to the heights of power and public service in America.
368 pages, Hardcover
First published September 13, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
November 27, 2023
I write this on the day that memorial services begin for Rosalynn Carter here in Atlanta. Given her recent passing, it seemed a good time to pull out this book that I’ve had for a while but had not yet read.
One of Godbold’s goals in writing this first of a two-volume work was to craft his narrative as a dual biography, instead of focusing mainly on Jimmy Carter while giving his wife secondary treatment. “The story of one is the story of the other,” he writes, so his book aims to tell Jimmy Carter’s story while elevating Rosalynn “to the place of equal partner in his life and career, which he insisted she deserved.”
His second goal, he explains, is “to challenge the popular image that the man from Plains was either saint or sinner, for he was neither.”
And to an extent, he accomplishes both goals. Early chapters alternate their focus between Jimmy and Rosalynn’s upbringings, comparing and contrasting their families, their daily lives and their personalities, before their stories converge. For a time, she was a conventional-for-the-era wife and mother, supporting her husband and faithfully following him wherever his career took him. Later she grew to become a more equal partner, keeping the books for the family business in Plains, participating in community initiatives, and throwing herself into his political campaigns.
But as capable and astute as she was, she still ultimately plays a supporting role in her husband’s story here. Time and again, Godbold relates how she had to learn to adapt to her husband’s ambitions and responsibilities, which are ultimately the main focus of the book. We’re told much about what Jimmy Carter did independently from Rosalynn, but little about what she did without him. Even when she developed her own interests in causes such as mental health care, she found herself lobbying her husband like any other special interest representative.
Godbold succeeds more thoroughly in his second goal of providing an even-handed portrait of Jimmy Carter as a person and a politician. He recounts Carter’s successes as a legislator and governor in great detail, but also acknowledges his faults that foreshadow some of the criticisms he would get as president. Some who crossed paths with him early in his political career found him to be “petty, a nitpicker, and self-righteous,” Godbold writes. As governor, he was “always the engineer who wanted quick, logical solutions and the naval officer expecting obedience to his orders.” He could be sharp-elbowed, transactional, and a savvy politico who used patronage, favors and political retribution to get what he wanted.
Perhaps the best portions of the book examine Carter’s views and actions when it came to race and the Civil Rights movement. Other biographies have knocked him for mostly sitting on the sidelines during this era, despite his personal aversion to racism. Godbold examines it all through the lens of politics, capturing the midcentury political shift in the changing South from Democratic to Republican, as the more progressive Carter increasingly became the odd man out in his own community. He essentially had to straddle the issue of race relations in order to maintain his own electability. “His diffidence on racial matters was Lincolnesque, in that it revealed nothing of where he actually stood on the burning issue of the day,” Godbold observes. Later, he writes that “to win the governorship of Georgia in such an atmosphere required evasiveness and vague semantics.” Carter’s true beliefs emerged after he was elected and pushed for greater racial equality, making good on his private vow to Black supporters that “you won't like my campaign, but you will like my administration.”
It’s not all politics, though, as Godbold describes the Carters’ family life, what they liked doing together in their free time, and he captures the softer side of the stereotypically buttoned-up Carter by highlighting his artistic interests in painting and writing and literature.
Where the book falls a bit short is in its prose. Much of the story is told in simple, efficient, dull sentences. “In elementary school, Jimmy liked books and teachers,” Godbold writes blandly. As First Lady of Georgia, Rosalynn “made numerous public appearances and attended many social functions.” You don’t say! It can read at times more like a basic school textbook than a biography. Dramatic stories from Carter’s youth are not told particularly dramatically - other biographies build the tension around events like a giant life-threatening wave knocking him off the deck of his surfaced submarine, his tense interview with Admiral Hyman Rickover, his work inside a melted-down nuclear reactor. As Godbold tells them, these anecdotes feel bland and lifeless, as he somehow manages to drain all the color out of them.
And in telling the “what” of the story, Godbold doesn’t often describe the “why.” Rosalynn and Carter’s mother Lillian didn’t really get along, he suggests. Why? We don’t really find out. Carter decides to run for president and believes he can actually win. Why? We never really get a good sense of his thought process.
But if it’s the “what” that you’re looking for, there’s plenty of it here to give you a good sense of how Carter worked his way to the top and how Rosalynn played an important role. This first volume’s focus only on the Carters’ Georgia years, up until 1974 when Carter announces his run for the White House, allows for a more focused view at a more leisurely pace. There’s no rush, as there can be in other biographies, to race through the early years in order to get to the main course of the presidency.
It’s left to volume two to follow the Carters to the White House and beyond. But understanding where they came from, before they assumed their roles on the national and global stage, helps one better appreciate how they chose to spend their remaining days together right where their story began - and why the town that Rosalynn once couldn’t wait to leave behind, is now where she’ll forever remain at rest.
One of Godbold’s goals in writing this first of a two-volume work was to craft his narrative as a dual biography, instead of focusing mainly on Jimmy Carter while giving his wife secondary treatment. “The story of one is the story of the other,” he writes, so his book aims to tell Jimmy Carter’s story while elevating Rosalynn “to the place of equal partner in his life and career, which he insisted she deserved.”
His second goal, he explains, is “to challenge the popular image that the man from Plains was either saint or sinner, for he was neither.”
And to an extent, he accomplishes both goals. Early chapters alternate their focus between Jimmy and Rosalynn’s upbringings, comparing and contrasting their families, their daily lives and their personalities, before their stories converge. For a time, she was a conventional-for-the-era wife and mother, supporting her husband and faithfully following him wherever his career took him. Later she grew to become a more equal partner, keeping the books for the family business in Plains, participating in community initiatives, and throwing herself into his political campaigns.
But as capable and astute as she was, she still ultimately plays a supporting role in her husband’s story here. Time and again, Godbold relates how she had to learn to adapt to her husband’s ambitions and responsibilities, which are ultimately the main focus of the book. We’re told much about what Jimmy Carter did independently from Rosalynn, but little about what she did without him. Even when she developed her own interests in causes such as mental health care, she found herself lobbying her husband like any other special interest representative.
Godbold succeeds more thoroughly in his second goal of providing an even-handed portrait of Jimmy Carter as a person and a politician. He recounts Carter’s successes as a legislator and governor in great detail, but also acknowledges his faults that foreshadow some of the criticisms he would get as president. Some who crossed paths with him early in his political career found him to be “petty, a nitpicker, and self-righteous,” Godbold writes. As governor, he was “always the engineer who wanted quick, logical solutions and the naval officer expecting obedience to his orders.” He could be sharp-elbowed, transactional, and a savvy politico who used patronage, favors and political retribution to get what he wanted.
Perhaps the best portions of the book examine Carter’s views and actions when it came to race and the Civil Rights movement. Other biographies have knocked him for mostly sitting on the sidelines during this era, despite his personal aversion to racism. Godbold examines it all through the lens of politics, capturing the midcentury political shift in the changing South from Democratic to Republican, as the more progressive Carter increasingly became the odd man out in his own community. He essentially had to straddle the issue of race relations in order to maintain his own electability. “His diffidence on racial matters was Lincolnesque, in that it revealed nothing of where he actually stood on the burning issue of the day,” Godbold observes. Later, he writes that “to win the governorship of Georgia in such an atmosphere required evasiveness and vague semantics.” Carter’s true beliefs emerged after he was elected and pushed for greater racial equality, making good on his private vow to Black supporters that “you won't like my campaign, but you will like my administration.”
It’s not all politics, though, as Godbold describes the Carters’ family life, what they liked doing together in their free time, and he captures the softer side of the stereotypically buttoned-up Carter by highlighting his artistic interests in painting and writing and literature.
Where the book falls a bit short is in its prose. Much of the story is told in simple, efficient, dull sentences. “In elementary school, Jimmy liked books and teachers,” Godbold writes blandly. As First Lady of Georgia, Rosalynn “made numerous public appearances and attended many social functions.” You don’t say! It can read at times more like a basic school textbook than a biography. Dramatic stories from Carter’s youth are not told particularly dramatically - other biographies build the tension around events like a giant life-threatening wave knocking him off the deck of his surfaced submarine, his tense interview with Admiral Hyman Rickover, his work inside a melted-down nuclear reactor. As Godbold tells them, these anecdotes feel bland and lifeless, as he somehow manages to drain all the color out of them.
And in telling the “what” of the story, Godbold doesn’t often describe the “why.” Rosalynn and Carter’s mother Lillian didn’t really get along, he suggests. Why? We don’t really find out. Carter decides to run for president and believes he can actually win. Why? We never really get a good sense of his thought process.
But if it’s the “what” that you’re looking for, there’s plenty of it here to give you a good sense of how Carter worked his way to the top and how Rosalynn played an important role. This first volume’s focus only on the Carters’ Georgia years, up until 1974 when Carter announces his run for the White House, allows for a more focused view at a more leisurely pace. There’s no rush, as there can be in other biographies, to race through the early years in order to get to the main course of the presidency.
It’s left to volume two to follow the Carters to the White House and beyond. But understanding where they came from, before they assumed their roles on the national and global stage, helps one better appreciate how they chose to spend their remaining days together right where their story began - and why the town that Rosalynn once couldn’t wait to leave behind, is now where she’ll forever remain at rest.
October 26, 2024
Stanly Godbold has written a two volume work on Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter. The first volume examines their lives from birth through Jimmy Carter’s official announcement that he was running for President in December of 1974. Godbold is an excellent researcher and his attention to detail is excellent. He is certainly knowledgeable about Georgia politics. But the author sometimes writes in almost a list-style format, not always bringing his subjects or supporting figures to life. Although this is an informative work, it doesn’t always keep the attention of the reader. But it does give us an interesting and complex picture of the Carters. Rating 3.5/5
April 8, 2023
Overall this was a good book about the early life of Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter. I learn things about them both in how their lives shaped by rural life in Georgia. The writing was a bit awkward and did not flow easily. I had to keep re-reading the same pages twices because it did not make sense to me. In addition, the biographer lightly glossed over the negativity and enemies of Carter in Georgia politics at that time of his rising. I always admired the Carters and now understand how hard they worked to become famous. A bright and smart man but could not always see the bigger picture of power.
January 7, 2025
I chose to read this biography upon the death of Jimmy Carter. It is first in a series of 2. The research was clearly solid and took quite some time. This book covers both Jimmy and Rosalynn from birth right up until the time they began running for the White House. At times, I felt the author was a bit removed from the subject but otherwise, a solid read chock full of details. Probably not a biography for a casual reader of history but rather for a more academic audience. Looking forward to starting book 2.
May 5, 2022
This was an interesting book. I didn't realize Jimmy Carter was a competitive person. I didn't know he had three boys. I guess you are never to old to learn.
July 25, 2025
Quite the tome, but magnificently researched by Godbold, Jr.–a delightful man and a true appreciator of the full picture of Jimmy and Rosalynn.
December 28, 2013
I'm glad I read Carter's White House Diaries before tackling this joint biography. It prepared me for his personality as depicted in Godbold's book. Carter is probably not someone with whom you would wish to split a beer (indeed, I was surprised to learn that he drinks at all), and seems to possess no discernible sense of humor (given that his must usual cartoon feature was his smile). The most interesting section of the book details his time at Annapolis and subsequent few years in the Navy. The pattern for his life was established there, and it came as somewhat of a surprise --- Carter never struck me as having a strong military background (on submarines, yet), but the well-ordered life of a serving Lieutenant was bang up his street.
The book is forthright in its topic, which is the Carters' careers prior to his announcement for the Presidency. Indeed, it stops at exactly that point with an abruptness that reminded me of Reeves' biography of J.F.K. This book is going to be of serious interest to those who have Georgia politics as a hobby (I don't). The rest of us will probably glaze over at the rote listings of his committee work in the legislature. I did perk up a bit at Godbold's description of how much Carter and Lester Maddox despised each other, but as usual Godbold is far too circumspect. To give another example: he clearly means the reader to understand that Rosalynn Carter and Lillian Carter disliked each other, that Rosalynn and Ruth Carter had a difficult relationship (years of being what Nancy Mitford used to call "being on non-speakers") and that the relationship with Billy was fraught. But he provides very few details about the relationships other than cryptic allusions. Is it because some of them are still alive? He did interview the Carters themselves for the book, so perhaps they exercised veto powers over any personal revelations. This is not to say that Godbold is never critical. He also alludes to Jimmy Carter's lively interest in revenge upon political opponents.
Where the book really disappoints is in the depiction of Rosalynn Carter. What fueled her? She is the pattern of the engaged political wife for the generation right before Hillary Clinton, and yet Godbold offers no explanation for her willingness to subsume herself to her husband's ambition save wifely devotion. Well, fine, sure, but there might have been a little anger involved as well. Is it an accident that her personal crusade (for the mentally ill) was also one of Miss Lillian's interests? Rosalynn Carter remains a very shadowy figure to be what Godbold describes: the chief adviser to Jimmy Carter throughout his political life.
The book is forthright in its topic, which is the Carters' careers prior to his announcement for the Presidency. Indeed, it stops at exactly that point with an abruptness that reminded me of Reeves' biography of J.F.K. This book is going to be of serious interest to those who have Georgia politics as a hobby (I don't). The rest of us will probably glaze over at the rote listings of his committee work in the legislature. I did perk up a bit at Godbold's description of how much Carter and Lester Maddox despised each other, but as usual Godbold is far too circumspect. To give another example: he clearly means the reader to understand that Rosalynn Carter and Lillian Carter disliked each other, that Rosalynn and Ruth Carter had a difficult relationship (years of being what Nancy Mitford used to call "being on non-speakers") and that the relationship with Billy was fraught. But he provides very few details about the relationships other than cryptic allusions. Is it because some of them are still alive? He did interview the Carters themselves for the book, so perhaps they exercised veto powers over any personal revelations. This is not to say that Godbold is never critical. He also alludes to Jimmy Carter's lively interest in revenge upon political opponents.
Where the book really disappoints is in the depiction of Rosalynn Carter. What fueled her? She is the pattern of the engaged political wife for the generation right before Hillary Clinton, and yet Godbold offers no explanation for her willingness to subsume herself to her husband's ambition save wifely devotion. Well, fine, sure, but there might have been a little anger involved as well. Is it an accident that her personal crusade (for the mentally ill) was also one of Miss Lillian's interests? Rosalynn Carter remains a very shadowy figure to be what Godbold describes: the chief adviser to Jimmy Carter throughout his political life.
June 12, 2012
I had mixed reservations when I chose to read this book mainly due to a review in the Washington Post, which alluded to the author being biased towards Carter. I wanted a critical review of Carter’s early political career, and I believe Godbold succeeded in that goal. The author tries to tell the story of Jimmy and Rosalynn and provides details discussing their early childhoods and early relationship. The author provides the back story of the Carters (that many people probably already know by picking up any book about the Carters). The author fails to provide more insights on Rosalynn. She had a huge role in Jimmy’s life and his role in politics, but the author does not really add any new facts or details on her life and views. At times entries about Rosalynn in the book read more like an afterthought and padding for some chapters. The book describes Jimmy’s inner thoughts and views fairly well, but is not able to peel back the layers of Rosalynn. The book is intriguing because it focuses on his political years in Georgia as a State Senator and Governor; most other books focus only on his role as president or life as an elder statesman. My summary of Carter as Governor from the information in the book is that he was a good manager as Governor but lacked forward thinking leadership (there are parallels when he served as President). A lot of the success he had was not something all voters would be able to assess. The improvements/changes he did on state agencies is amazing, the ability to eliminate so much bureaucracy was a huge task. Carter was also influential in improving race relations within the state. For a book that is part of a two volume set, it lacked in detail and in policy discussion. I was expecting more in depth discussion about Carter’s legislative policies and maybe some chapters discussing the impact of his legislation. The book also had one glaring error in which it stated Gary Hart was a candidate in 1972 for the presidential race (Gary Hart was McGovern’s campaign manager). The best part of the book is the description of Carter meeting his future Cabinet members and how he built his presidential campaign as he was Governor. As someone who is a huge Carter fan (he was not the most effective president but he was probably the most honest and religious man in the office), I would recommend this book only if you are interested in his years as Governor.
January 5, 2011
Well-written and documented. I'm sure those from the state of Georgia and those who know lots of the the politicians from the state would enjoy it very much. Inner workings of politics is always fascinating to me. I'll probably read the second volume when it is published.
November 21, 2010
Fascinating.
October 11, 2015
This is good book about this couple, how they met, got married, went into politics and how he became Governor.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews