The unfinished presidency

It is not a stretch to argue that history will remember Jimmy Carter for his post-presidential works long after his tenure in the White House has been forgotten. But as Douglas Brinkley points out in this absorbing study, it took such presidential accomplishments as human rights advocacy, the Camp David Accords, and the Panama Canal Treaties to give Carter the international moral credibility to refashion himself as the global peacemaker.Although his is an unauthorized biography, Brinkley has had unique and intimate access to the former President -traveling with him to meet Simon Peres in Israel and Jean-Bertrand Arisitide in Haiti, spending hours interviewing him at home in Georgia, and being allowed exclusive access to the post-presidential papers, including Carter's correspondence with fellow world leaders Mikhail Gorbachev, Deng Xiaoping, Margaret Thatcher, and Oscar Arias. Drawing on this wealth of information, Brinkley's book fully captures the ubiquitous Carter's prickly personality and remarkable political life since 1980, including the complex relationships he has developed with such international pariahs as Fidel Castro, D