Literary Legacy of Jimmy Carter Essays on the President's Books
Produktdetaljer
Om bidragsyterne
Mark I. West is a professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where he has taught since 1984. He is the author or editor of over twenty books, including Theodore Roosevelt on Books and Reading (2023) and Theodore Roosevelt and His Library at Sagamore Hill (2022).
Frye Gaillard, former writer in residence at the University of South Alabama, is a journalist-historian who has written more than 30 books. His award-winning titles include A Hard Rain: America in the 1960s (an NPR best book of 2018); Cradle of Freedom: Alabama and the Movement that Changed America; and Prophet from Plains: Jimmy Carter and His Legacy.
<p>A huge thank you to the essayists who have curated Carter’s extraordinary body of work in this tribute to a literary life that began with his first campaign memoir, <i>Why Not the Best?.</i> Carter flourished in all forms, memoir, poetry, religion, aging, even an historical novel. It is an honor to add my voice to his long overdue recognition as a writer.</p>
- Eleanor Clift, commentator for MSNBC and The Daily Beast, former White House correspondent for Newsweek,
<p>Elegant and thoroughly researched, this collection of essays on President Jimmy Carter provides an intimate and inspiring look into the remarkable legacy of a statesman, humanitarian, poet, and writer. <i>The</i><i>Literary Legacy of Jimmy Carter </i>is the sharing of mind and spirit that illumines, to paraphrase John Henry Cardinal Newman, the best that has been thought and said about our 39th President of the United States. A must-read book for every American.</p>
- Sue Brannan Walker, former Poet Laureate of Alabama, and founding editor of the award-winning journal, Negative Capability Press, which published Jimmy Carter’s poetry,
<p>Jimmy Carter is celebrated for his monumental impact on humanity, but his literary contributions reveal an equally profound legacy. With over thirty books spanning poetry, memoirs, and fiction, Carter’s writing offers an intimate glimpse into the extraordinary breadth of his mind and imagination. <i>The Literary Legacy of Jimmy Carter</i> presents a collection of essays that delve into this often-overlooked facet of his life, offering readers a captivating exploration of the literary dimension of a truly remarkable American figure.</p>
- Patti Callahan Henry, NYT Bestselling author, winner of the Harper Lee Award,
<p>Jimmy Carter is surely among our most well-read Presidents. Novelist William Faulkner and theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, for example, wrote from a depth of authentic engagement with issues of faith, culture, spirit, and politics that helped engender Carter’s own rare capacity reflected in these pages. Carter’s literary legacy deserves the honor herein. As a white Southern clergyman who came of age in the civil rights movement and has wrestled in that arena ever since, I give special thanks for this volume.</p>
- Doug Tanner, cofounder and former chief executive of the Faith and Politics Institute in Washington, DC,
<p>Instead of paid speeches, corporate boards and celebrity golf, Jimmy Carter made his living after leaving office writing books, each a reflection of a different part of his astonishing life as a Renaissance Man. These essays illuminate the 39th president's large and eclectic literary output and bolster the broad reassessment of Carter now underway.</p>
- Jonathan Alter, Author of "His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, a Life",
Jimmy Carter’s expansive body of writing ranges across the genres of memoir, commentary, children’s literature, poetry, and a novel about the Revolutionary War. Editors Mark I. West and Frye Gaillard have assembled a group of award-winning journalists, poets, historians, and literary scholars to reflect on this substantial – and to some, unexpected – dimension of Carter’s legacy. Collectively, these essays, including several by the editors themselves, document a through-line of ethical integrity, perspective, and insight that runs through Carter’s writing – from his controversial trilogy on peace in the Middle East to his personal reflections on his Georgia boyhood. Carter never used a ghost writer. As a result, his distinct voice and point of view comes through in every book that he published.
The Literary Legacy of Jimmy Carter brings together original essays about the thirty-two books that President Jimmy Carter wrote over the course of his life. Since Carter wrote most of these books after completing his term as president, this collection sheds light on Carter’s remarkable post-presidency years.
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Reflections on President Jimmy Carter’s Career as an Author
Mark I. West and Frye Gaillard
1. Jimmy Carter’s Books from His First Presidential Campaign: Why Not the Best and A Government as Good as Its People
Mark I. West
2. Reflections on Jimmy Carter’s Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President
Frye Gaillard
3. The Blood of Abraham: Jimmy Carter’s Search for Peace in the Middle East
Ben Cohen
4. Finding Our Way Again: An Essay on the Carters’ Memoir Everything to Gain: Making the Most of the Rest of Your Life
Charlotte Pence
5. Baptism by Fire: Jimmy Carter’s First Election as Recounted in Turning Point
Kaye Lanning Minchew
6. Absorbed in the Wilderness: Jimmy Carter’s An Outdoor Journal
Marilynn S. Olson
7. A President’s Poetic Journey: Always a Reckoning
Emily Seelbinder
8. The Litle Baby Snoogle-Fleejer: Jimmy Carter’s Story for Children
Paula T. Connolly
9. A Firm Foundation: Jimmy Carter’s Reflections on His Life in A Living Faith and Sources of Strength
Ronald F. Lunsford
10. Thinking Out Loud: Jimmy Carter’s Thoughts on Aging in The Virtues of Aging and A Full Life
Boyd Davis and Meredith Troutman-Jordan
11. An Hour Before Daylight and Christmas in Plains: Jimmy Carter’s Narratives of Home
Jeffrey B. Leak
12. A Presidential First: The Hornet’s Nest, Jimmy Carter’s Historical Novel
Paula Gallant Eckard
13. Sharing Good Times: Jimmy Carter on Making Lasting Memories
Daniel Shealy
14. A Voice Crying in the Wilderness: Jimmy Carter’s Our Endangered Values
Michael J. Brown
15. Cri de coeur: Jimmy Carter’s Palestine Peace Not Apartheid
Nancy Mitchell
16. Beyond the White House: Jimmy Carter’s Reflections on His Post-Presidency Years
Cynthia Tucker and Frye Gaillard
17. A Remarkable Mother: Jimmy Carter’s Tribute to Miss Lillian
Kathy Merlock Jackson
18. A Jimmy Carter Sequel: We Can Have Peace in the Holy Land
Frye Gaillard
19. Jimmy Carter’s Day-to-Day Life as President: White House Diary
Orville Vernon Burton
20. Challenging Patriarchy: Jimmy Carter’s A Call to Action
Richard W. Leeman
21. Working with His Hands: The Craftsmanship of Jimmy Carter and The Paintings of Jimmy Carter
Frye Gaillard and Caroline Gebhard
22. Swansong: Jimmy Carter’s Parting Gift of Faith: A Journey for All
Mark A. Lempke
23. A Selective Bibliography of Jimmy Carter’s Writings
Camille McCutcheon
Index
About the Editors
About the Contributors
Produktdetaljer
Om bidragsyterne
Mark I. West is a professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where he has taught since 1984. He is the author or editor of over twenty books, including Theodore Roosevelt on Books and Reading (2023) and Theodore Roosevelt and His Library at Sagamore Hill (2022).
Frye Gaillard, former writer in residence at the University of South Alabama, is a journalist-historian who has written more than 30 books. His award-winning titles include A Hard Rain: America in the 1960s (an NPR best book of 2018); Cradle of Freedom: Alabama and the Movement that Changed America; and Prophet from Plains: Jimmy Carter and His Legacy.