
The Outlier
The Unfinished Presidency of Jimmy Carter
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Narrated by:
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Arthur Morey
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By:
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Kai Bird
About this listen
“Important...[a] landmark presidential biography.... Bird is able to build a persuasive case that the Carter presidency deserves this new look.” (The New York Times Book Review)
An essential re-evaluation of the complex triumphs and tragedies of Jimmy Carter’s presidential legacy - from the expert biographer and Pulitzer Prize-winning co-author of American Prometheus
Four decades after Ronald Reagan’s landslide win in 1980, Jimmy Carter’s one-term presidency is often labeled a failure; indeed, many Americans view Carter as the only ex-president to have used the White House as a stepping-stone to greater achievements. But in retrospect the Carter political odyssey is a rich and human story, marked by both formidable accomplishments and painful political adversity. In this deeply researched, brilliantly written account, Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Kai Bird deftly unfolds the Carter saga as a tragic tipping point in American history.
As president, Carter was not merely an outsider; he was an outlier. He was the only president in a century to grow up in the heart of the Deep South, and his born-again Christianity made him the most openly religious president in memory. This outlier brought to the White House a rare mix of humility, candor, and unnerving self-confidence that neither Washington nor America was ready to embrace. Decades before today’s public reckoning with the vast gulf between America’s ethos and its actions, Carter looked out on a nation torn by race and demoralized by Watergate and Vietnam and prescribed a radical self-examination from which voters recoiled. The cost of his unshakable belief in doing the right thing would be losing his re-election bid - and witnessing the ascendance of Reagan.
In these remarkable pages, Bird traces the arc of Carter’s administration, from his aggressive domestic agenda to his controversial foreign policy record, taking readers inside the Oval Office and through Carter’s battles with both a political establishment and a Washington press corps that proved as adversarial as any foreign power. Bird shows how issues still hotly debated today - from national health care to growing inequality and racism to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - burned at the heart of Carter’s America, and consumed a president who found a moral duty in solving them.
Drawing on interviews with Carter and members of his administration and recently declassified documents, Bird delivers a profound, clear-eyed evaluation of a leader whose legacy has been deeply misunderstood. The Outlier is the definitive account of an enigmatic presidency - both as it really happened and as it is remembered in the American consciousness.
©2021 Kai Bird (P)2021 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“This beautifully written book will take its place alongside other superb one-volume biographies of American presidents. The Outlier will raise readers’ estimates of Jimmy Carter’s term in office.” (Robert Dallek, New York Times best-selling author of Franklin D. Roosevelt and An Unfinished Life)
"An ‘outlier’ among politicians, Carter shows what democratic politics could be, if the power-hungry, dishonest figures would just get out of the way. Bird’s book offers a rich and compelling account of Carter’s sincere efforts to make American policies match the nation’s ideals.” (The Washington Post)
“A bracing reminder that the 39th president was a man of probity, decency, high hopes, and high moral standards.... Bird’s take on whom he calls ‘our most enigmatic president’ is relentlessly fair-minded. [The Outlier] redeems [Carter’s] presidency and reminds us of how callous we might have been during his years in office.” (The Boston Globe)
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Story
Through a blend of memoir and history, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Kai Bird recounts the Western experience in the Middle East and just why it has been so turbulent. Through Bird ’s Zelig-like presence, the reader experiences the Suez War of 1956, the June 1967 War, and the Black September hijackings of 1970 that led to the Jordanian Civil War. Bird ’s memoir also shows how all of these momentous events led to the rise and tragic downfall of a secular Arab nationalist ethos.
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The reading is atrocious
- By Ari on 07-18-10
By: Kai Bird
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Our Endangered Values
- America's Moral Crisis
- By: Jimmy Carter
- Narrated by: Jimmy Carter
- Length: 4 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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In Our Endangered Values, Carter offers a personal consideration of "moral values" as they relate to the important issues of the day. He puts forward a passionate defense of separation of church and state, and a strong warning of where the country is heading as the lines between politics and rigid religious fundamentalism are blurred.
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A thoughtful and insightful work
- By William H. on 11-05-05
By: Jimmy Carter
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Faith
- By: Jimmy Carter
- Narrated by: Jimmy Carter
- Length: 4 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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In this powerful reflection, President Jimmy Carter contemplates how faith has sustained him in happiness and disappointment. He considers how we may find it in our own lives. As President Carter examines faith's many meanings, he describes how to accept it, live it, how to doubt and find faith again. A serious and moving reflection from one of America's most admired and respected citizens.
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Last Great Democrat
- By Victor on 04-07-18
By: Jimmy Carter
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Hoover
- An Extraordinary Life in Extraordinary Times
- By: Kenneth Whyte
- Narrated by: Richard Ferrone
- Length: 27 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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The definitive biography of Herbert Hoover, one of the most remarkable Americans of the 20th century - a revisionist account that will forever change the way Americans understand the man, his presidency, and his battle against the Great Depression. A poor orphan who built a fortune, a great humanitarian, a president elected in a landslide and then routed in the next election, arguably the father of both New Deal liberalism and modern conservatism - Herbert Hoover is also one of our least understood presidents.
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What a fascinating story!
- By Dan Ryan on 11-18-17
By: Kenneth Whyte
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Bush
- By: Jean Edward Smith
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 25 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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In Bush, Jean Edward Smith demonstrates that it was not Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, or Condoleezza Rice, but President Bush himself who took personal control of foreign policy. Bush drew on his deep religious conviction that important foreign-policy decisions were simply a matter of good versus evil. Domestically, he overreacted to 9/11 and endangered Americans' civil liberties.
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Delusions of Competence
- By Rick on 11-18-16
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President Garfield
- From Radical to Unifier
- By: CW Goodyear
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 17 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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In “the most comprehensive Garfield biography in almost fifty years” (The Wall Street Journal), C.W. Goodyear charts the life and times of one of the most remarkable Americans ever to win the Presidency. Progressive firebrand and conservative compromiser; Union war hero and founder of the first Department of Education; Supreme Court attorney and abolitionist preacher; mathematician and canalman; crooked election-fixed and clean-government champion; Congressional chieftain and gentleman-farmer; the last president to be born in a log cabin; the second to be assassinated.
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Excellent
- By Krmartin on 08-19-23
By: CW Goodyear
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The Jazz Age President
- Defending Warren G. Harding
- By: Ryan S. Walters
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 8 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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He's the butt of political jokes, frequently subjected to ridicule, and almost never absent a "Worst Presidents" list where he most often ends up at the bottom. Historians have labeled him the "Worst President Ever," "Dead Last," "Unfit," and "Incompetent," to name but a few. Many contemporaries were equally cruel. H. L. Mencken called him a "nitwit." To Alice Roosevelt Longworth, he was a "slob."
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Excellent clarification
- By Scott J. Jones MD on 08-03-22
By: Ryan S. Walters
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Keeping Faith
- Memoirs of a President
- By: Jimmy Carter
- Narrated by: Donnie Sipes
- Length: 26 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Available for the first time as an audiobook, Keeping Faith is Jimmy Carter's account of the satisfaction, frustration, and solitude that attend the man in the Oval Office.
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A fantastic book
- By John A. on 01-19-22
By: Jimmy Carter
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The Virtues of Aging
- By: Jimmy Carter
- Narrated by: Jimmy Carter
- Length: 2 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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"Virtues? What could possibly be good about growing old?" That's the response former President Jimmy Carter received when he mentioned the title of this book. Indeed, the thought of aging causes people to worry about the physical aspect of it as well as the prejudice that exists toward the elderly. Carter demonstrates, however, that there are indeed virtues to aging, exploring the possibility of spiritual and intellectual growth in old age. This inspirational audio version is narrated by Carter himself.
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A Must for the Aging
- By Chris on 11-29-03
By: Jimmy Carter
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In the Enemy's House
- The Secret Saga of the FBI Agent and the Code Breaker Who Caught the Russian Spies
- By: Howard Blum
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 11 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1946, genius linguist and codebreaker Meredith Gardner discovered that the KGB was running an extensive network of strategically placed spies inside the United States, whose goal was to infiltrate American intelligence and steal the nation's military and atomic secrets. Over the course of the next decade, he and young FBI supervisor Bob Lamphere worked together on Venona, a top-secret mission to uncover the Soviet agents and protect the Holy Grail of Cold War espionage - the atomic bomb.
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Excellent non-fiction spy story
- By Katherine on 10-13-18
By: Howard Blum
It gives an honest assessment of what went right and what went wrong.
Honest Assessment of the Carter Presidency
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Informative, well presented and engrossing
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Fair with both criticism & parise with many moving parts.
Carter had his faults (but is far and away our best former president) but has never been given ful credit for his accomplishments.
A great man of faith who always operated with good intentions.
Bird highlights the roles of Xbig, David Rockefeller and others in bringing the Shah to the US - precipitating the hostage crisis.
Zbig come off as the hawkish villan he was!
He properly roasts Bill Casey & Reagan for the treasonous work to dely the release of the Iranian hostages and deliver the 1980 election to Reagan.
A nuanced biography
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New Perspectives
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Review
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An easy listen very informative and thoughtful
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Thought provoking Biography
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In accordance with Mr. Bird's talents, this book is well-researched, well-paced, and exquisitely detailed. It's pretty much everything you could ask for in a biography. The attention he pays to The Deep South and Carter's being brought up in such a unique place and time in history is particularly laudable.
And it was nice to be reminded that there truly are OUTSTANDING narrators out there, and Arthur Morey is one of them.
Overall, if you have ANY interest whatsoever in learning more about Carter, this book is well worth your time.
Nice to be reminded what a GREAT narrator is
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Fascinating
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When the auther cliamed that his major achievement was to put a solar panel in the roof of the white house, or that the Israeli-Pestinuan Oslo agreements were due to his ex-president "moral support" to Yasser Arafat, I actually laughed.
Still, the book is well written, Carter is a very interesting human being and the author provide an interesting review of the relevant historic events.
The Jimmi Carter song of praise
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