Jonathan Alter, NBC contributing correspondent and author of His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, A Life, joined LBJ Foundation President Mark Updegrove to honor the life and legacy of our 39th President, Jimmy Carter. NPR said of His Very Best, “It’s … bound to fascinate anyone with an interest in American history, and an excellent look at the man whom Alter considers, justifiably, ‘perhaps the most misunderstood president in American history.'”
The Carter Center, the non-profit organization launched by President and Mrs. Carter over forty years ago, co-hosted this program, which was held in the Lady Bird Johnson Auditorium at the LBJ Presidential Library.
About the Speaker:
Jonathan Alter is an award-winning author, political analyst, documentary filmmaker, columnist, television producer and radio host.
His most recent book is American Reckoning: Inside Trump’s Trial―and My Own, published in October 2024. His earlier books include three New York Times bestsellers: The Center Holds: Obama and His Enemies, The Promise: President Obama, Year One, and The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope.
About the Book:
In His Very Best, published in 2020, Jonathan Alter tells the epic story of an enigmatic man of faith and his improbable journey from barefoot boy to global icon. Alter paints an intimate and surprising portrait of the only president since Thomas Jefferson who can fairly be called a Renaissance Man, a complex figure—ridiculed and later revered—with a piercing intelligence, prickly intensity, and biting wit beneath the patented smile. Here is a moral exemplar for our times, a flawed but underrated president of decency and vision who was committed to telling the truth to the American people.