Karsh Signature

Yousuf Karsh, master photographer of the 20th century

Jimmy Carter

Jimmy Carter, 1981

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Kai Bird’s new book The Outlier: The Unfinished Presidency of Jimmy Carter is out now* from Crown/Random House. This portrait is included.

From the blurb: As president, Carter was not merely an outsider, but 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 a second term – and the ascendance of Reagan. Read more.

*update: new publication date June 15, 2021

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