The 39th President of the United States, Jimmy Carter, inspired readers all over the world.
Many readers today may not recall the policies or actions of Jimmy Carter during his four years as President. However, Carter leaves a remarkable legacy through his writings.
President Carter was a strong advocate for peace, human rights, and global diplomacy. His career included decades devoted to public service, humanitarian efforts, and global advocacy. The books he authored cover topics from his personal experiences, to poetry, to his vision for a better world.
A Legacy of Service: Jimmy Carter's Impact Beyond Politics
Carter’s influence is far from confined to his presidency. After leaving the White House, he continued his tireless work with the Carter Center. The center man focus is on global health, disease eradication, and conflict resolution. His commitment to human rights is reflected in his literary works, where he discusses his views on global peace, ethics, and the challenges facing humanity.
One of his most notable works, "An Hour Before Daylight," is a memoir that offers readers a glimpse into his upbringing in rural Georgia. It provides a window into his values, character, and the early experiences that shaped his political career. His honest and reflective writing style allows readers to connect deeply with his journey.
An Hour Before Daylight: Memories of a Rural Boyhood
by Jimmy Carter
"An American classic." --The New Yorker
In An Hour Before Daylight, Jimmy Carter, bestselling author of Living Faith and Sources of Strength, recreates his Depression-era boyhood on a Georgia farm before the civil rights movement forever changed it and the country.
Carter writes about the powerful rhythms of countryside and community in a sharecropping economy, offering an unforgettable portrait of his father, a brilliant farmer and a strict segregationist who treated black workers with respect and fairness; his strong-willed and well-read mother; and the five other people who shaped his early life, three of whom were black.
Carter's clean and eloquent prose evokes a time when the cycles of life were predictable and simple and the rules were heartbreaking and complex. In his singular voice and with a novelist's gift for detail, Jimmy Carter creates a sensitive portrait of an era that shaped the nation and recounts a classic, American story of enduring importance.
A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power
by Jimmy Carter
In the highly acclaimed bestselling A Call to Action, President Jimmy Carter addresses the world's most serious, pervasive, and ignored violation of basic human rights: the ongoing discrimination and violence against women and girls.
President Carter was encouraged to write this book by a wide coalition of leaders of all faiths. His urgent report covers a system of discrimination that extends to every nation. Women are deprived of equal opportunity in wealthier nations and "owned" by men in others, forced to suffer servitude, child marriage, and genital cutting. The most vulnerable and their children are trapped in war and violence.
A Call to Action addresses the suffering inflicted upon women by a false interpretation of carefully selected religious texts and a growing tolerance of violence and warfare. Key verses are often omitted or quoted out of context by male religious leaders to exalt the status of men and exclude women. And in nations that accept or even glorify violence, this perceived inequality becomes the basis for abuse.
Carter draws upon his own experiences and the testimony of courageous women from all regions and all major religions to demonstrate that women around the world, more than half of all human beings, are being denied equal rights. This is an informed and passionate charge about a devastating effect on economic prosperity and unconscionable human suffering. It affects us all.
A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety
by Jimmy Carter
In his major New York Times bestseller, Jimmy Carter looks back from ninety years of age and "reveals private thoughts and recollections over a fascinating career as businessman, politician, evangelist, and humanitarian" (Booklist).
At ninety, Jimmy Carter reflects on his public and private life with a frankness that is disarming. He adds detail and emotion about his youth in rural Georgia that he described in his magnificent An Hour Before Daylight.
He writes about racism and the isolation of the Carters. Carter goes on to portray the brutality of the hazing regimen at Annapolis, and how he nearly lost his life twice serving on submarines and his amazing interview with Admiral Rickover. He admits that he decided to quit the Navy and later enter politics without consulting his wife, Rosalynn, and how appalled he is in retrospect.
A Remarkable Mother
by Jimmy Carter
A Remarkable Mother is President Carter's loving, admiring, wry homage to Miss Lillian Carter, who championed the underdog always, even when her son was president.
Jimmy Carter's mother emerges from this portrait as redoubtable, generous, and forward-looking. He ascribes to her the inspiration for his own life's work of commitment and faith.
Beyond the White House: Waging Peace, Fighting Disease, Building Hope
by Jimmy Carter
The president's personal and passionate account of his twenty-five years in the service of humanitarian effort that won him the Nobel Peace Prize was received with the admiring respect of reviewers and readers and it will stand as the record of his brilliant post-presidential career.
This is the story of President Jimmy Carter's post-presidency, the most admired and productive in the nation's history. Through The Carter Center, which he and Rosalynn Carter founded in 1982, he has fought neglected diseases, waged peace in war zones, and built hope among some of the most forgotten and needy people in the world.
Serving in more than seventy nations, Carter has led peacekeeping efforts for Ethiopia, North Korea, Haiti, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Uganda, and Sudan. With his colleagues from The Carter Center, he has monitored more than sixty-five elections in troubled nations, from Palestine to Indonesia.
Carter's bold initiatives, undertaken with dedicated colleagues, have eliminated, prevented, or cured an array of diseases that have been characterized as "neglected" by the World Health Organization and that afflict tens of millions of people unnecessarily. The Carter Center has taught millions of African families how to increase the production of food grains, and Rosalynn Carter has led a vigorous war against the stigma of mental illness around the world.
"Immersing ourselves among these deprived and suffering people has been a great blessing as it stretched our minds and hearts," Jimmy Carter writes. "The principles of The Carter Center have been the same ones that should characterize our nation, or any individual. They are the beliefs inherent in all the great world religions, including commitments to peace, justice, freedom, humility, forgiveness or an attempt to find accommodation with potential foes, generosity, human rights or fair treatment of others, protection of the environment, and the alleviation of suffering. This is our agenda for the future."
Christmas in Plains: Memories
by Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter remembers Christmas in Plains, Georgia, the source of spiritual strength, respite, friendship, and vacation fun in this charming portrait.
In a beautifully rendered portrait, Jimmy Carter remembers the Christmas days of his Plains boyhood--the simplicity of family and community gift-giving, his father's eggnog, the children's house decorations, the school Nativity pageant, the fireworks, Luke's story of the birth of Christ, and the poignancy of his black neighbors' poverty.
Later, away at Annapolis, he always went home to Plains, and during his Navy years, when he and Rosalynn were raising their young family, they spent their Christmases together recreating for their children the holiday festivities of their youth.
Since the Carters returned home to Plains for good, they have always been there on Christmas Day, with only one exception in forty-eight years: In 1980, with Americans held hostage in Iran, Jimmy, Rosalynn, and Amy went by themselves to Camp David, where they felt lonely. Amy suggested that they invite the White House staff and their families to join them and to celebrate.
Nowadays the Carters' large family is still together at Christmastime, offering each other the gifts and the lifelong rituals that mark this day for them.
With the novelist's eye that enchanted readers of his memoir An Hour Before Daylight, Jimmy Carter has written another American classic, in the tradition of Truman Capote's A Christmas Memory and Dylan Thomas's A Child's Christmas in Wales.
Faith: A Journey for All
by Jimmy Carter
In this powerful and personal New York Times bestseller, President Jimmy Carter contemplates how faith has sustained him in happiness and disappointment and considers how we may find it in our own lives.
All his life, President Jimmy Carter has been a courageous exemplar of faith. Now he shares the lessons he learned. He writes, "The issue of faith arises in almost every area of human existence, so it is important to understand its multiple meanings. In this book, my primary goal is to explore the broader meaning of faith, its far-reaching effect on our lives, and its relationship to past, present, and future events in America and around the world. The religious aspects of faith are also covered, since this is how the word is most often used, and I have included a description of the ways my faith has guided and sustained me, as well as how it has challenged and driven me to seek a closer and better relationship with people and with God."
Quoting eminent Protestant theologians, in Faith President Carter describes his belief in religious freedom, moral politics, and the place of prayer in his daily life. He examines faith's many meanings, he describes how to accept it, live it, how to doubt and find faith again. This is a serious and moving reflection from one of America's most admired and respected citizens.
Negotiation
by Jimmy Carter
This first address of the Carl Vinson Memorial Lecture Series at Mercer University is a masterful assessment of the difficulties of resolving disputes. President Carter's guidelines for establishing a more stable peace in the world are concise and imaginative without sacrificing their essential practicality.
Why You Should Read Jimmy Carter’s Books
Carter’s books are not only insightful, but they also provide invaluable lessons on leadership, compassion, and perseverance. Whether you're a political history buff, a fan of memoirs, or simply someone interested in former presidents, his writings are a must-read.
By reading one of Jimmy Carter’s books, you not only gain access to a deeper understanding of his legacy, but you also support his ongoing humanitarian work.