Ever the outsider, Jimmy Carter served a turbulent term in the White House. His presidency was beset by soaring interest and inflation rates, gasoline pump lines and the Iran hostage crisis that eventually led to his re-election defeat.
But he rose to even greater heights with his post-presidential career, devoting another four decades to working as an international envoy of peacemaking and democracy. James Earl Carter Jr., a peanut farmer who became the 39th president of the United States, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.
Trounced by Ronald Reagan in the 1980 election, Carter was, at 56, a politician with only a past and “a potentially empty life” ahead. Then, in 1982, he organized the Carter Center in Atlanta.
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