Beyond the White House: Waging Peace, Fighting Disease, Building Hope | 
|  | | | Title: | Beyond the White House: Waging Peace, Fighting Disease, Building Hope | | Author: | Jimmy Carter | | Publisher: | Simon & Schuster | | Type: | Book / Hardcover | | Publication Date: | 02 October, 2007 | | ISBN / ISBN-13: | 1416558802 / 9781416558804 | | List Price: | $26.00 | | You Save: | $7.02 | | Amazon Price: | $18.98 | |
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Product Description
This is the story of President Jimmy Carter's post-presidency, the most admired and productive in the nation's history. Through The Carter Center, which he and Rosalynn Carter founded in 1982, he has fought neglected diseases, waged peace in war zones, and built hope among some of the most forgotten and needy people in the world.
Serving in more than seventy nations, Carter has led peacekeeping efforts for Ethiopia, North Korea, Haiti, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Uganda, and Sudan. With his colleagues from The Carter Center, he has monitored more than sixty-five elections in troubled nations, from Palestine to Indonesia.
Carter's bold initiatives, undertaken with dedicated colleagues, have eliminated, prevented, or cured an array of diseases that have been characterized as "neglected" by the World Health Organization and that afflict tens of millions of people unnecessarily. The Carter Center has taught millions of African families how to increase the production of food grains, and Rosalynn Carter has led a vigorous war against the stigma of mental illness around the world.
"Immersing ourselves among these deprived and suffering people has been a great blessing as it stretched our minds and hearts," Jimmy Carter writes. "The principles of The Carter Center have been the same ones that should characterize our nation, or any individual. They are the beliefs inherent in all the great world religions, including commitments to peace, justice, freedom, humility, forgiveness or an attempt to find accommodation with potential foes, generosity, human rights or fair treatment of others, protection of the environment, and the alleviation of suffering. This is our agenda for the future."
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Customer Reviews:
• Told In Carter's Plain-spoken, Folksy Manner 03 May, 2008
Pulitzer Prize winner and former President Jimmy Carter presents his memoir/retrospective on twenty-five years of humanitarian work in Beyond the White House: Waging Peace, Fighting Disease, Building Hope, now available in an unabridged audiobook on CD with tracks every three minutes for easy bookmarking. Narrated by Tom Stechschulte and Barbara Caruso, Beyond the White House tells of Carter's travels to distant, often war-torn lands from Haiti to Ethiopia on missions of peacekeeping, as well as his efforts to combat disease. Though told in Carter's plain-spoken, folksy manner, Beyond the White House not only illuminates his world-spanning efforts to do good, but also challenges the listener to think and act in ways that promote responsible worldwide social ethics. Highly recommended. 7 CDs, 7 3/4 hours.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A14OJS0VWMOSWO
• What An Example For All Of Us... 13 January, 2008
What this man has done post presidency is simply amazing. Pres. Carter writes in a simple unassumming style while telling these incredible stories of things he has been involved in since he left office, like eradicating terrible diseases and monitoring elections. A really interesting read..
- Reviewed by customer ID: A23C5M7ESM0OTD
• An Inspiring Story From An Inspiring Leader 02 December, 2007
Jimmy Carter's effectiveness as president will be long debated, as will the presidencies of most of the people who have held that office but despite some criticism from the extreme right his post presidential career has won the hearts of most Americans. From the fact that he went back home to his modest Georgia house to the work of the Carter Center to the fact that anyone can go and meet him on most Sundays as he teaches Sunday School at his home church, Jimmy Carter has become the very image of how many people think former presidents should spend their post presidential career.
This book deals almost exclusively with one aspect of Carter's life after the White House and that is the work of the Carter Center. There are numerous very poignant moments described in this book as the former president and first lady travel to many of the most desolate areas of the world seeking to help improve the lives of the people who live there. There is also humor to be found such as the predicament that the first board of directors of the Carter Center found themselves in while trying to figure out how to phrase the by-laws to deal with the governance of the Center after the death of the Carter's. For the most part though this is the very moving story of how the Carter Center has improved the lives of millions of people.
One of the basic thrusts of the book is that because he is an ex-president Jimmy Carter can gain the corporation of third world governments that otherwise would probably not allow these foreigners to work so openly in their countries. There are also diplomatic missions that the Center undertakes and they are well known as election monitors but it is their work fighting and in some cases eliminating disease that is the most impressive and that is the centerpiece of this book. The work of the Center with agriculture is barely mentioned but their success there would likely fill another book all on its own. Also notable is Carter's willingness to give credit for these achievements to others and not to even take all of the credit that is due to he and his wife.
The biggest problem with this book is that a lot of the information found here can be found in President Carter's previous books and so I found that a good bit of the material here seemed pretty repetitive. There is a lot of information that I haven't run across before but in places I did feel like I was rereading a book that I had read before. In all fairness though I can't help but feel that this book was intended to raise public awareness of the Carter Center and its work and to therefore help with fundraising especially in a future that at some point will not include the fundraising powers of a former president. President Carter has become a very skilled author and as usual the writing was excellent and I thoroughly enjoyed the book, even the repetitive parts.
- Reviewed by customer ID: AN7LJWCGEWFYU
• A Former President And His Many Good Works 22 February, 2008
Beyond the White House is a book written by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and it covers his political, social, and humanitarian activities since he left the White House early in 1981. Carter has achieved much in his days since leaving Washington D.C. and he seems anxious to share his accomplishments with the reader. Through his Carter Center, the former president, his wife Rosalynn, and their team of associates at the center have labored long hours, traveled around the world, and met with dozens of foreign leaders to work out agreements, wipe out disease, and improve political freedom.
Most people already know about Jimmy Carter's humanitarian works and his efforts to improve the world around him. But some may not be aware of the actual events that have transpired while working toward these goals. Carter explains some of them in detail, and in some instances, he takes the details a bit too far. This is especially true in the book's opening chapters when Carter is discussing his meetings with government leaders of different countries. When I started to read this part of the book, I was expecting something written in a manner similar to a personal memoir. Instead, these opening chapters read like a play- by- play excerpt from a diary. I was expecting a quick overview of the meetings and what was achieved, but Carter felt the need to give the rundown on what happened each day and at different times throughout the day. A quick summary would have been sufficient.
In the second half of the book, however, Carter settles down and starts to talk about some of his important humanitarian achievements. I particularly liked the chapter on fighting disease. I was fully aware of Carter's work with Habitat for Humanity and I knew that he and his wife Rosalynn Carter were active in working toward a disease- free world. But I did not know exactly what diseases were high on their list and what level of success they had achieved. This chapter explains it all, and it includes some graphic photographs of individuals inflicted with certain preventable diseases. Carter explains in this chapter how he and his associates at the Carter Center have worked with the native people of different African nations and have helped them eliminate many diseases simply by encouraging cleanliness and by advocating filtering water before drinking.
The chapter titled "Building Hope" is another good chapter because it includes some of Carter's work on human rights. I would have preferred that this chapter be a little longer, but it still gets the point across. Carter is very concerned about political freedom and he has worked long and hard to spread democracy and basic human rights around the world. I also liked that he included a section on his work in his home state of Georgia; specifically, in the city of Atlanta, to improve living conditions among the city's poor.
Beyond the White House isn't a political book in the usual sense. Carter voices a few concerns about the human rights violations that have taken place under George W. Bush's watch and he points out the positive working relationship he has enjoyed with Gerald Ford, George H.W. Bush, and others. But other than that, he steers clear of political criticisms and differences in this book. He wanted this to be a book about the accomplishments of the Carter Center and he wanted to inspire everyone to work toward change for the betterment of humans around the world. For the most part, this book generally succeeds in these endeavors.
Overall, Beyond the White House is a good book about Jimmy Carter's work as an ex- president and it details the many accomplishments of the Carter Center in its efforts to spread democracy, eliminate disease, and encouraging improvements in human rights. The first part of the book is a little more detailed than it needed to be, and some of the other chapters could use a little more length. But the book is still good overall and it presents a nice summary of what a person can achieve to improve the world around them. Carter had his share of difficulties as president, but his days since leaving the White House have been filled with achievement, and his life is a good example of the good that people can do in the later stages of their lives.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A3JPFWKS83R49V
• An Inspiration Of Caring, Acting And Succeeding In Positive Change 25 November, 2007
To do good works despite the stigma of the U. S. Government is a wish many of us share, and this book shows it can be done. Jimmy Carter is almost embarrassingly present on every page of this book, in the most oppressed, downtrodden and deprived corners of the world. It is not ego, but the ability to use the stature as a former president, that puts Jimmy Carter on these pages. As the author, he credits hundreds of others for their contributions to world peace, health, and improvement. Reluctantly he includes himself, and joyfully he adds Rosalynn, as the catalyst to uplifting change in the realms of politics, health, oppression, and human-caused tragedy around the world.
In an encyclopedia or almanac format, short essays understate the enormous changes brought about by the ability to move important people to action on behalf of some of the most powerless. Beginning with election monitoring, and with a major portion on eliminating debilitating "forgotten diseases" that infect millions, he concludes with a vision for continuing this kind of work for the next 25 years.
It becomes obvious that this book is not about Jimmy Carter, or the Carter Center, but about what change is possible. It is a challenge to the best in all of us to follow the example of the plain-spoken nuclear physicist from Plains to do what we can to improve the world. Don't give up; despite massive obstacles from powerful people, bringing the best of each human forward can still bring us all to a better world.
You can read this as a biography, or as a promotion of the Carter Center, but at the end the possibility of positive change is the torch carried forward by this book.
- Reviewed by customer ID: APG1KMJ32MNFQ
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