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rienthril's review
3.0
3.5 stars. A good, digestible Carter biography. Zelizer maybe dwells more on Carter's campaigns than on his actual service in office. The book moves swiftly and covers a lot of ground in just 150 pages of text (the rest is references and indexing). Facts are all backed up by references, and the books comes off as an honest and fair portrayal of Carter's public life to date, focusing primarily on his Presidency, of course, since this book is part of a series on the American Presidents. Carter is framed as a maverick politician, beating the odds and the party machinery to clinch the Democratic nomination. He rides the wave of Watergate cynicism into the office, but then never manages to master governance as President, with fractious relationships with his party and key Democratic constituencies. These relationships are further frayed as political crises unfold, such as the Iran Hostage Crisis, which in many ways defined Carter's Presidency as a failure and cost him a chance at a second term. Zelizer tries to contextualize a bit, giving a sense that perhaps any Democrat would have had a similarly challenging ride in that era. The party itself was reeling from inner divisions, economic troubles were severe with few answers that anyone was agreeable to (much like now - 2011), and the Iran Hostage Crisis and Soviet invasion of Afghanistan were viewed through lenses clouded by Cold War thinking, which is a "cloudy" view, I suppose, only in retrospect. A final chapter and epilogue describe Carter's unusually active and controversial post-presidency. Personally, I think he comes off as a better post-president than a President. A total idealist, reveling in his freedom from political restraints. Overall, a nice quick read, but not unfair in its brevity.
alexrobinsonsupergenius's review
3.0
How does one write a satisfying book about one of the biggest presidential failures? I'm glad it was short because it was a depressing read.
kbelcher1992's review
3.0
It was an interesting read overall. Jimmy Carter seemed like an interesting character overall, especially considering he was elected president. It was a quick read and seemed like a 10,000 foot overview which was just what I was looking for. I would suggest to anyone interested in presidential biographies.
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