The phone kept ringing for Amber Roessner, one day after Jimmy Carter died at age 100. She’s a rare expert, a scholar who has devoted an important part of her life to documenting the impact of a former president who has a complicated legacy: world-class diplomat and seer about the dissatisfaction that’s fueled the MAGA movement; one-term president and foil for critics from left and right
Roessner, a University of Tennessee at Knoxville professor, is the author of “Jimmy Carter and the Birth of the Marathon Media Campaign,” a 2020 book that focuses on the campaign and “image craft” of the former president, who finalized the Camp David Accords as well as the treaties that transferred the Panama Canal to its Latin American namesake.
Carter took office as the 39th U.S. president in 1977 and served a single term that is often viewed as a “failed presidency.” But Carter’s legacy of humanitarianism elevated his service worldwide.
Carter was the only president to reach 100 years old. His wife, Rosalynn Carter, died last year at the age of 96.