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Jimmy Carter was arguably of America’s post-World War II era. in Plains, Ga., the Carter Center said. Leaders who reach the pinnacle of power are usually complicated individuals. But Carter was a man whose outward image was often the opposite of what lay underneath. He strove to convey simplicity and humility, yet he was a highly sophisticated man with ego and ambition that burned hotter than most. “Don’t pay any attention to that smile. That don’t mean a thing,” said Ben Fortson, Georgia’s secretary of state for a period of 33 years that included Carter’s tenure as governor. “That man is made of steel, determination and stubbornness.” Carter’s own wife, Rosalynn, once said that her husband “appears kind of meek or something. People always underestimate him.” Carter has been widely considered an unsuccessful president who was overwhelmed by events. And compared with the presidencies of, say, Johnson, Nixon or Reagan, Carter’s single term is a period that historians and the public showed very little interest in revisiting, though that began to shift in his last few years. Yet he lived a compelling, exemplary life, and he was beset by challenges in office that would have stymied most leaders. During Carter’s term, he was unable to resolve the major problems that confronted America in the late 1970s. He could not tame inflation or unite the Democratic Party, and he couldn’t free the Americans who were held captive in Iran for more than a year. It’s not well known, however, that the agreement that led to freedom for the 52 American hostages in Tehran was negotiated by Carter and his administration during his final weeks in office. Ronald Reagan had little if anything to do with it, even though he is commonly given credit, since the Iranians released the hostages moments after he was inaugurated. In 1979 Carter appointed Paul Volcker as chairman of the Federal Reserve; Volcker’s policies brought down inflation, which was running in double digits by the end of the decade, though it took time for that to happen, and Reagan reaped the political benefits. Some critiques of the Volcker appointment have come from the left, who said his policies benefitted Wall Street at the expense of the working class. Reagan is also given all the credit for the fall of the Soviet Union and communism. But Carter’s one-two punch — he increased defense spending and made human rights a core plank of American foreign policy — put pressure on the Soviets fiscally and morally, and Carter for forcing the USSR onto an unsustainable trajectory. It was Carter’s style that rubbed many Americans the wrong way. When Teddy Kennedy decided to run against him in 1980, challenging the incumbent president of his own party, he made Carter’s lack of leadership his central argument. "Only the president can provide the sense of direction needed by the nation," Kennedy said when he announced his candidacy in November 1979. "For many months, we have been sinking into crisis, yet we hear no clear summons from the center of power.” Over the years, Carter has been commonly remembered as a kind of Mister Rogers figure, a soft-spoken man wearing a sweater who was good but not strong. Yet Carter’s strength was on display all his life. He grew up in rural poverty and worked his way into the Naval Academy. He had few political connections in Georgia and yet willed his way to the governorship. And he won the presidency with few insider party credentials. And then, after a devastating and overwhelming loss to Reagan in 1980, Carter revolutionized what it means to be an ex-president. He won the release of political prisoners around the world, resolved conflicts in war zones, monitored elections in fledgling democracies and helped eradicate disease. He wrote or published more than 30 books in the years after his presidency, including a novel (the first by a U.S. president), a book of poetry, a children’s book, a book on fishing and other outdoor sporting activities, two on making the most of older years (one of which he co-wrote with Rosalynn), a few on the Middle East, a few personal history books focused on different periods of his life, and a handful of religious devotional books. And finally, he remained married to Rosalynn for 77 years — until her death in 2023 — and he lived to the age of 100. Carter’s father and his three siblings had all died in their 50s or early 60s of pancreatic cancer, and yet he overcame brain cancer at age 90. He never lost his intense zeal for life. He certainly wasn’t overly nice. In fact, one of the biggest criticisms of Carter during the 1980 campaign against Reagan was that Carter was too mean. He consistently, throughout his political career, made the mistake of personally attacking his opponents in ways that backfired with the electorate. He painted Reagan as an unstable warmonger and said that if the Republican were elected, “Americans might be separated, Black from white, Jew from Christian, North from South, rural from urban.” Carter had, in fact, made a deliberate decision at the beginning of his political career — which consumed less than a fifth of his entire life — that he could participate in the morally nebulous world of campaigns and governance and still retain his personal integrity. He once compared being a state senator to being a pastor with 80,000 parishioners. He was deeply influenced by Christian theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, who wrote that “man is the kind of lion who both kills the lamb and dreams of when the lion and the lamb shall lie down together.” Carter called a collection of Niebuhr’s essays his “political bible.” Jimmy Carter was born Oct. 1, 1924, in a small local hospital in the southwest Georgia town of Plains. He was the first U.S. president born in a hospital. Carter was the first child of James Earl Carter, a World War I veteran and an industrious peanut farmer, and Lillian Carter, a nurse. He would become known as the “man from Plains,” but he actually grew up in a place called Archery, 2.5 miles west of Plains. This was Carter’s term for it: not a town or a village, but a “place.” Archery “was never quite a real town,” Carter wrote. It’s no longer even on any maps. But “it’s where I grew up,” he said. There was no running water in Carter’s home until he was 9 years old, and he and his family would relieve themselves either in one of the “slop jars” that were in each of the three bedrooms or out back in the outdoor privy. They did not have toilet paper. When his father bought a small windmill in 1935, it powered a toilet, a sink and a rudimentary shower. The showerhead was a can with holes poked in it. Electricity would not arrive on most farms until President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Rural Electrification Administration made headway, so artificial light came from kerosene lamps. And until the 1940s, the farming process in the Deep South was largely the same as during colonial times nearly 200 years before. Tractors or any form of mechanized power were rare, so plowing was done with mules. Harvesting was done by hand and depended on manual labor, usually from Black tenant workers who lived in shacks on the farm property in exchange for a job, and who had little prospect of ever earning much money. The Southern farm population actually grew from 1930 to 1935, as city workers lost jobs and moved to places like Archery. Carter’s father, Earl, owned 350 acres. It was a good-sized farm, especially since many other family estates were in a multi-decade process of being subdivided by descendants of Southern plantation owners after the Civil War. And Earl made the most of it. He was smart, thrifty, and a good businessman. Earl could be stoic and restrained, and was sometimes severe. The family did not speak at the dinner table, although they were allowed to bring books to read while they ate. Jimmy strove to please his father and rarely felt he succeeded. But he had a happy childhood, roaming through creeks and forests with friends, shirtless and shoeless. But he also engaged in demanding physical labor from a young age. He picked cotton alongside field hands. He learned how to guide the mules in plowing the fields. He had two younger sisters, Gloria and Ruth. His only brother, Billy, was not born until Jimmy was 12 years old. Earl Carter’s politics were segregationist and white supremacist, as were most white Georgians’ at the time. But Jimmy’s mother, Lillian, was a progressive on racial questions from a young age. Earl “was tolerant if not supportive of Lillian’s views,” Carter wrote in “Turning Point,” his 1992 memoir of growing up in Georgia. Earl was “above all, a Talmadge man,” meaning he was a devoted supporter of Eugene Talmadge, the arch-segregationist governor of Georgia in the 1930s and ’40s. When Earl died in 1953, Jimmy was a naval officer stationed in Schenectady, N.Y., on a track that would have put him in position to potentially take command of a nuclear submarine in the near future. But he abandoned his naval career to come home and take over his parents’ farm, overriding Rosalynn’s strong opposition to the move. He ran for state Senate in 1962. A corrupt local official stood in a polling place telling residents how to vote, intimidating Carter supporters and stuffing the ballot box. Yet Carter mounted a drive to have the vote recounted and the corruption investigated. He succeeded, largely thanks to a series of articles in the Atlanta Journal, and was seated in the legislature. When his church, the First Baptist Church in Plains, voted in the summer of 1964 to formalize its practice of preventing Black worshippers from attending services, Carter stood and spoke against the resolution. Many in the congregation abstained from voting out of fear, but of those who did vote, only Carter’s family and one other farmer opposed the proposal. It passed 54 to 6. He was not outspoken on some racial hot-button issues. But he pointedly refused to join the segregationist White Citizens Council, despite threats and intimidation. Carter ran for governor in 1966 but came in third in the Democratic primary, behind former Gov. Ellis Arnall and Lester Maddox, a committed segregationist who won a runoff with Arnall and then the governorship in the fall. Carter turned his attention quickly to running for governor again in 1970. He also experienced an existential crisis at the age of 42, questioning the direction and meaning of his life. He began reading the Bible more closely and questioning . During this time, Carter discovered Niebuhr. He traveled with three other men to Lock Haven, Pa., a coal-mining town in the center of the state, to proselytize for a new Southern Baptist church that was coming to the town. He spent 10 days knocking on doors. At each home, Carter or another man would talk about their personal faith in Jesus Christ and invite anyone interested to nightly services that they organized at the local YMCA. Carter later described his time in Lock Haven as a “miracle.” It was, he said, “where I first experienced in a personal and intense way the presence of the Holy Spirit in my life.” This was an early precursor to the “born again” dynamic of Christians in the 1970s whose revivals created the “Jesus movement.” In his 1970 campaign against former Gov. Carl Sanders, Carter sought the support of African American pastors and had the endorsement of Martin Luther King Jr. But his campaign also made covert appeals to white bigotry. Campaign aides distributed fliers with a photo of Sanders, a part owner of the Atlanta Hawks, celebrating a victory with a Black player, Lou Hudson. Carter also made numerous overtures to supporters of Alabama Gov. George Wallace, one of the staunchest defenders of segregation, and attracted the support of the most notorious white supremacists in Georgia. “I never made a racist statement,” Carter told me in a 2015 interview. “But I did get the more conservative country votes there in Georgia because I never did anything to alienate them.” In his inaugural speech in 1971, Carter recast himself once again as a racial progressive. “I say to you quite frankly that the time for racial discrimination is over,” he said. To the Black leaders in Georgia he promised, “You’re going to like me as governor.” Carter’s main achievement as governor was a major reorganization of the state government, to consolidate agencies and introduce more efficiency. But his limitations as an executive were already clear during his time in Atlanta. He had no use or appreciation for the human and relational side of politics, which is crucial to working with a legislature. “He had very few personal relationships, in my opinion,” said Bert Lance, a friend and adviser who ran Georgia’s powerful transportation department under Carter. “I like people. I like to be around them. I try to be cordial to them. Not that he doesn’t, but he’d just rather be by himself.” E. Stanly Godbold noted in his biography of Carter that during his time as governor, “Apart from Rosalynn, he saw as few people as possible. ... Usually he ate lunch alone in his office, ordering the food from the cafeteria. ... In the afternoons he studied serious academic books about politics and society." The first recorded instance of Carter discussing the presidency was in the summer of 1971, less than a year after he was elected governor. By the fall of 1972, he and his close circle of advisers had begun to openly talk about it and began planning for a run in 1976. Few took him seriously. When Carter first raised the topic of running for president with his mother, Lillian, she responded, “President of what?” But even before Watergate, Carter and his advisers discussed the need for “moral leadership” in the country in the wake of the Vietnam War’s divisive effect. A national leader was needed, they thought, who would be more transparent and open with the country and say things that might be unpopular. Adviser Ham Jordan argued that a Carter candidacy should “encompass and expand on the Wallace constituency and ‘populist’ philosophy by being a better qualified and more responsible alternative.” Carter would represent a “New South” and could help the Democrats hold on to their fracturing coalition, which included large swaths of the South along with big-city machines across the Rust Belt, organized labor and minorities. Carter pioneered a new approach to primaries, campaigning hard in every state, aided by young advisers who had closely studied the way the nominating system had changed, and who also understood the growing importance of television as a way to project an image that superseded political ideology. He benefited from an organized effort by Democratic activists in Florida who lobbied and pressured other Democrats to stay out of the state’s primary in 1976 to give Carter a clean one-on-one matchup against Wallace, who was running for president a fourth time and had won the primary in Florida in 1972 with 41% of the vote. Carter is remembered as an inept communicator, but in person, he converted followers with the success — and the methods — of a traveling preacher. “A strange calm came over the audience as he talked of America’s basic goodness,” Jules Witcover, a reporter for the Washington Post, observed early in the campaign. “His speeches are mostly received with a strange quietness,” Charles Mohr wrote in the New York Times. Carter said the nation’s decency had only been “temporarily obscured by the debasings perpetuated by [former President Richard] Nixon.” “I want a government that is as good, and honest, and decent, and truthful, and fair, and competent, and idealistic, and compassionate, and as filled with love as are the American people,” he said, over and over. Witcover, who compared Carter to Christian evangelist Billy Graham, called this phrase Carter’s “personal rosary” and noted that “in crowd after crowd, it worked.” The country was not only disillusioned by Nixon and Watergate. Americans were disquieted and made anxious by the rise of inflation in the early ’70s, by the energy crisis of 1973 that created lines of cars at gas stations and by a slowing economy. Wages were flatlining. Jobs were disappearing. The cost of living was going up. People may have wanted someone to redeem the country, but they also wanted someone who could restore their confidence and ease their economic pain. There were no themes to Carter’s candidacy except “faith in Jimmy Carter and the sense of hope he sought to inspire in the American people,” wrote Carter adviser Peter Bourne. Witcover picked up on this as well. “He asked of voters the same ‘leap of faith’ that is at the core of religious belief,” he wrote. The electorate was ripe for this approach, as Carter pollster Pat Caddell had discovered. Voters wanted “non ideological change and the restoration of values.” He came out of nowhere to win the Iowa caucuses, and by the time he defeated Wallace in Florida, Carter had a head of steam that carried him to the nomination. He narrowly defeated President Gerald Ford in the popular vote, 40.8 million votes to 39.1 million, and in the Electoral College, 297 to 240. It was the smallest margin of victory in electoral votes for a president since 1916. In addition, the negative tone of the campaign had taken a toll. The election saw the lowest voter turnout for a presidential race in 28 years, at only 54%. Carter entered Washington as an outsider, and the presidency without much of a mandate. He was the first presidential candidate to win control of the government while running against government. Barry Goldwater had attempted it in 1964 and was crushed. Carter told audiences in 1976 that “our government in Washington now is a horrible bureaucratic mess. It is disorganized, wasteful, has no purpose, and its policies — when they exist — are incomprehensible or devised by special interest groups with little regard for the welfare of the average American citizen.” Carter was not a part of the Washington establishment, and he was proud of it. But his outsider status left him exposed when events began to undermine him. He didn’t understand the presidency or have the help of anyone who did. Carter showed signs early on of the myopic, obsessive managerial style that would cause him trouble later. It emerged that the president would sometimes scrutinize the list of government officials scheduled to accompany him on a foreign trip and scratch out the names of those he did not think needed to come. And any staff who wanted to use the tennis court on the White House grounds had to receive permission from the president himself. “He has his eye on anything that moves,” said an aide. As the summer of 1977 arrived, there were more serious warning signs. The House had passed most of Carter’s energy plan, but polling showed declining public support for the legislation. Carter and his administration were pushing the Senate to ratify the treaty they had negotiated with Panama over transfer of the canal, but Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd was in no rush, and the right was in an uproar over the move. Former California Gov. Ronald Reagan was denouncing the Panama deal on his daily radio commentary, which reached 40 million people. And the president’s relations with the Jewish community were declining as a result of his focus on peace talks and his prickly relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin. In the fall of 1978, Carter achieved what would be the high-water mark of his presidency, drawing on all his powers of persuasion, all his determination and stubbornness, to keep Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat at the Camp David presidential retreat for 13 days, long enough for them to agree to a Middle East peace deal. But Carter’s charisma and grit weren’t doing much for the American people at home. Inflation climbed in 1978, from 6.8% at the beginning of the year to 9% in November. By May 1979, it was at 11% and still climbing, headed to 13% at the end of the year. The purchasing power of the middle class had been under strain for years, and now it was being obliterated. The economy was stuck in neutral, with the industrial sector in full collapse, roiling the middle portion of the country, where jobs and pensions had been easy to come by for years. The Soviet Union was building up its military. And there was great concern about the rise of Japan as an economic superpower. Violent crime had been increasing in the nation for over a decade, with murders doubling since 1966 to the highest point in American history in the late ’70s. In late April 1979, former Carter speechwriter James Fallows unleashed a barrage of criticism at the president in the Atlantic magazine. “For the part of his job that involves leadership, Carter's style of thought cripples him. He thinks he ‘leads’ by choosing the correct policy; but he fails to project a vision larger than the problem he is tackling at the moment,” Fallows wrote. He felt that Carter’s weakness was that he approached problems as “technical, not historical” and that he had a “lack of curiosity about how the story turned out before.” Around that same time, gas shortages caused in part by the Islamic Revolution in Iran created gas lines in parts of the country. People waited for hours to fill up, and violence began to mount. Adding to the chaos, independent truckers went on strike to protest the rising price of diesel and began blocking highways and filling stations with their rigs. There were violent attacks on truck drivers who sought to break ranks with the strikers. In late June, frustration over the gas lines and the trucker protests came to a boiling point in the Philadelphia suburb of Levittown, where widespread rioting broke out. Police arrested 200 people over two nights, and 44 officers were injured. Carter was scheduled to give an energy speech on July 5 to calm the country’s frayed nerves. But one day before the speech, he canceled it and remained at Camp David. For the first 24 hours, most of the White House staff didn’t even know what the president was doing. Eventually, he stayed there 10 days, hosting groups of governors, religious leaders, economists, members of Congress and other assorted people, talking through the nation’s challenges. He hoped to help the American people think of the energy crisis in the same way they had approached the space race with the Soviets, the same way JFK had inspired the country by setting a goal in 1961 of getting a man on the moon before the end of the decade. Carter’s eventual response became known as his notorious “malaise” speech, even though he never used the word “malaise.” The speech, in actuality, was one of the best of his presidency. It was a remarkable address that was extremely well received by the press and the public. The reason the speech is now considered a failure is because two days after he gave it, Carter — seeking to project strength and boldness — asked for the resignations of every one of his major Cabinet officers. Though he did have some long-standing frustrations with the performance or loyalty of most of these officials, the firings were mostly a political and public relations ploy conceived of and encouraged by Ham Jordan. The changes backfired horribly and came off as chaotic and weak. By the summer of 1979, polls showed Ted Kennedy leading Carter by 2 to 1 among likely Democratic voters, and the last of the Kennedy brothers was preparing to take the dramatic step of running against a president of his own party. “I’m going to whip his ass,” Carter told a group of Democratic congressmen at the White House. It didn’t look that way as Kennedy prepared to run against Carter. But then on Nov. 4 the world changed. Iranian radicals in Tehran seized the U.S. Embassy and took 66 Americans hostage. Along with a disastrous Kennedy interview with CBS News’ Roger Mudd, the hostage crisis turned Carter’s political fortunes around, and he was able to defeat Kennedy in the primary, though it was a long and costly battle. Carter’s presidency had been derailed time and again by the impression that he was powerless and inept, especially as inflation raged on and the hostage crisis dragged out. And yet as he faced off with Reagan in the general election, Carter’s Achilles’ heel would be his penchant for aggressive campaigning, not some perception of weakness. Jimmy Carter's own mother, Lillian, once described him as “a beautiful cat with sharp claws.” Journalist Hunter S. Thompson called Carter "one of the three meanest men I’ve ever met." The other two were boxer Muhammad Ali and Sonny Barger, leader of the Hells Angels. Carter, Thompson said, “would cut my head off to carry North Dakota. He’d cut both your legs off to carry a ward in the Bronx. ... He will eat your shoulder right off if he thinks it’s right.” After a series of comments about Reagan that implied the Republican was catering to racism in some voters, Carter was portrayed by the political press as going too far. He did a damage-control interview with Barbara Walters. Her first question pointed out to him that he had, in recent days, “been characterized as mean, vindictive, hysterical and on the point of desperation." On Oct. 22, a week before the first and only debate between Carter and Reagan, comments from Iranian leaders suggested that a resolution — and a release of the 52 remaining Americans in Tehran — could be imminent. This raised the prospect of a dramatic turnaround for Carter’s fortunes. He had been saved from the Kennedy challenge by the seizure of the hostages. Would his response to the crisis now help him win a second term? There were still tense moments in the final weekend before the election as it appeared the hostages might be released. But it was not to be. The hostages were not released, and Carter went down to a historic defeat. Reagan beat him in 44 out of 50 states and crushed him in the Electoral College 489 to 49. The 1980 election was marked by apathy. Reagan beat Carter amid the lowest turnout in a presidential election since 1948. Only 52.4% of eligible voters went to the polls. But it was a historically significant election because the coalition that Democrats had relied on for decades since FDR’s presidency — combining union members in the big cities, poor rural voters, racial minorities, Catholics and the South — had splintered for good. It was a realigning event. Carter’s total loss of support among white Baptist voters in the South demonstrated how badly his coalition from 1976 had been turned upside down. Carter finished out his term working obsessively to release the hostages. He signed a series of executive orders executing a deal with the Iranian government and spent his last weekend in office waiting for word on whether the deal would go through. He announced its completion at 4:44 a.m. on Monday, Jan. 19, the day before Reagan’s inauguration. Carter aides hoped the deal would be done so quickly he could go to meet the hostages in Germany that evening and be back in Washington on Inauguration Day to transfer power to Reagan. But it was not to be. In one final indignity, the Iranians released the hostages only after Reagan had been sworn in as the nation’s 40th president. Carter, years later, would imply that he believed Reagan had with Ayatollah Khomeini, the Iranian leader, to wait until the inauguration to free the hostages, in exchange for military equipment that Tehran needed to fight Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi troops. Gary Sick, an Iran expert who served on Carter’s National Security Council staff, published a book in 1991 titled “October Surprise,” which made the case that Reagan had colluded with the Iranians. Carter told author Douglas Brinkley in 1995 that “if you try to dig further into Gary’s ‘October Surprise’ revelations, and are successful, you may not like what you find.” After an initial period of depression and searching, Carter became a major factor in international relations in the late ’80s and ’90s. He was helped by his close friendship with fellow Georgian Ted Turner, who owned the fledgling 24-hour cable news network CNN, launched during Carter’s final year in office. Carter spent decades in a frenetic and often freelancing pursuit of global peacemaking and healing. Rosalynn was always at his side and as much a partner as ever. Though he became even more active in the Middle East peace process, he grew more radical in his support for an independent Palestinian state and his outspoken criticism of Israel. He was a regular presence in Latin America, convened arms control experts at his Carter Center in Atlanta and launched efforts to eradicate disease in Africa. In 1986, he set a goal of eradicating the painful Guinea worm disease from the Earth. Also called dracunculiasis, it afflicted roughly 3.5 million people at that time, most of them in central Africa, and the United Nations estimated that 100 million people were at risk of the disease. In 2015, there were only 22 cases in Africa. On his last Sunday as president, Carter — a defeated politician — taught Sunday school at First Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., and talked about Jesus’s remark that “it is the one who is least among you all who is the greatest.” Carter said, “Is greatness being a president? An emperor?” No, he said. “The foundation of greatness is service to others.” By that definition, the always ambitious Carter achieved greatness in his post-presidency. He was not a central player in the biggest story of the late ’80s and early ’90s: the fall of communist governments in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. But he did enter the public eye as a key figure in some internationally known conflicts during that time. He stood up to Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega in 1989. After observing elections there, Carter compiled evidence that Noriega had stolen the election, and he vigorously denounced the Panamanian ruler during a 45-minute press conference in Panama City. In 1994, Carter was again an influential force. He helped prevent a U.S. invasion of Haiti through last-minute negotiations, headed off a conflict with North Korea and helped secure a four-month ceasefire in the bloody Balkan conflict between Serbs, Croats and Bosnians. But in the latter two cases, Carter alienated himself from the first Democratic president to take office since he had left it, Bill Clinton. Carter’s freelancing on CNN — announcing details of a deal without consulting Clinton — limited the president’s choices and was viewed as deeply disloyal. It was similar to the way he had ruined a healthy relationship with President George H.W. Bush’s administration by publicly and privately seeking to undermine the administration’s coalition building as it prepared to send troops to Kuwait in 1991 to throw Iraqi invaders out. Carter’s lone attempt at urban renewal, labeled the Atlanta Project and launched in 1991, achieved subpar results in helping reduce poverty. But he led a robust and energetic life even into his 90s. In addition to his relentless book writing, he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. In August 2015 he underwent surgery for brain cancer. Miraculously, he was declared cancer-free three months later. He continued to teach Sunday school in Plains on a regular basis. Carter was often criticized and belittled by the right. But many of his once unpopular stands looked better over time. He spoke out against the invasion of Iraq when doing so was unpopular. He spoke out against the war on drugs in 2011 before it was really all that fashionable to do so. He saw the importance of housing in fighting poverty. He helped make Habitat for Humanity, a community service organization, a globally known charity and continued to build houses with the group into his 90s. Carter's presidency was beleaguered by external challenges and his own weaknesses. He was hindered by his tendency to judge others by the same incredibly high standards he set for himself. He felt it was beneath him to trade favors with lawmakers or cajole them into supporting his ideas. He preferred to persuade them through pure reason. This obtuseness about how politics actually worked undermined him. But he was an extraordinary individual who came from the dirt of a southwest Georgia farm during the Great Depression and accomplished more in a life than most would ever dare or dream, ending his life as one of the greatest humanitarians of our time.DENVER (AP) — Amid renewed interest in the killing of JonBenet Ramsey triggered in part by a new Netflix documentary, police in Boulder, Colorado, refuted assertions this week that there is viable evidence and leads about the 1996 killing of the 6-year-old girl that they are not pursuing. JonBenet Ramsey, who competed in beauty pageants, was found dead in the basement of her family’s home in the college town of Boulder the day after Christmas in 1996. Her body was found several hours after her mother called 911 to say her daughter was missing and a ransom note had been left behind. The details of the crime and video footage of JonBenet competing in pageants propelled the case into one of the highest-profile mysteries in the United States. The police comments came as part of their annual update on the investigation, a month before the 28th anniversary of JonBenet’s killing. Police said they released it a little earlier due to the increased attention on the case, apparently referring to the three-part Netflix series “Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenet Ramsey.” In a video statement, Boulder Police Chief Steve Redfearn said the department welcomes news coverage and documentaries about the killing of JonBenet, who would have been 34 this year, as a way to generate possible new leads. He said the department is committed to solving the case but needs to be careful about what it shares about the investigation to protect a possible future prosecution. “What I can tell you though, is we have thoroughly investigated multiple people as suspects throughout the years and we continue to be open-minded about what occurred as we investigate the tips that come into detectives,” he said. The Netflix documentary focuses on the mistakes made by police and the “media circus” surrounding the case. JonBenet was bludgeoned and strangled. Her death was ruled a homicide, but nobody was ever prosecuted. Police were widely criticized for mishandling the early investigation into her death amid speculation that her family was responsible. However, a prosecutor cleared her parents, John and Patsy Ramsey, and brother Burke in 2008 based on new DNA evidence from JonBenet’s clothing that pointed to the involvement of an “unexplained third party” in her slaying. The announcement by former district attorney Mary Lacy came two years after Patsy Ramsey died of cancer. Lacy called the Ramseys “victims of this crime.” John Ramsey has continued to speak out for the case to be solved. In 2022, he supported an online petition asking Colorado’s governor to intervene in the investigation by putting an outside agency in charge of DNA testing in the case. In the Netflix documentary, he said he has been advocating for several items that have not been prepared for DNA testing to be tested and for other items to be retested. He said the results should be put through a genealogy database. In recent years, investigators have identified suspects in unsolved cases by comparing DNA profiles from crime scenes and to DNA testing results shared online by people researching their family trees. In 2021, police said in their annual update that DNA hadn’t been ruled out to help solve the case, and in 2022 noted that some evidence could be “consumed” if DNA testing is done on it. Last year, police said they convened a panel of outside experts to review the investigation to give recommendations and determine if updated technologies or forensic testing might produce new leads. In the latest update, Redfearn said that review had ended but that police continue to work through and evaluate a “lengthy list of recommendations” from the panel. ____ Amy Beth Hanson contributed to this report from Helena, Montana.

Runner's World: Top RBs take flight when Ravens entertain Eagles

Happy Holidays! It’s Sunday once more, and you know what that means — it’s time for our weekly social media roundup! It was a slow week in the Yankees Universe this week, as we celebrated all three of the mainstream winter holidays — Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa — on Wednesday and Thursday! How did the members of our Yankees celebrate the holiday season? Let’s find out! Season’s Greetings from the Yankees To lead off this week’s roundup, we’ve got a compilation of holiday posts from throughout the Yankees Universe: the official team account, current players, former players, broadcasters, and more! Happy Holidays from the New York Yankees!❄ pic.twitter.com/rZZJCP4e0L A post shared by Talkin Yanks (@talkinyanks) A post shared by Suzyn Waldman (@suzynwaldman) A post shared by Michael Kay (@kayster61) A post shared by CC Sabathia (@cc_sabathia) Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all! Wishing everyone all the love, joy, and blessings this season pic.twitter.com/6cKZ2wqnBT A post shared by Alex Rodriguez (@arod) A post shared by Bartolo Colon (@bcolon40) A post shared by Rookie (@batdogrookie) Farewell, Gleyber Soon after agreeing to a one-year, $15 million contract with the Detroit Tigers, Gleyber Torres took to Instagram to thank the Yankees Universe and to express his gratitude for his eight years in the organization. A post shared by Gleyber Torres (@gleyberdavid) Remembering the Debut In a video posted to their Instagram, Topps asked Aaron Judge to name the lineup from his major league debut, and he showed that, well, he’s the Captain for the reason. Judge remembered every player from that day’s lineup with little difficulty, struggling only on the day’s DH (an admittedly embarrassing one to struggle on, since it was The Kraken during his insane 2016 rookie campaign, Gary Sánchez). Aaron Judge tries to remember the starting line-up from his MLB Debut... pic.twitter.com/0lZD62jOdv Down on the Farm The Somerset Patriots’ social media team has been absolute aces this year, and their holiday week shenanigans were also fantastic. They gave us puns on players’ names and gifts to players at the team facilities working out. Honestly we're down for Cole in our stocking pic.twitter.com/b8IOXJ0GCX Twas the night before Christmas One more batch of presents was dropped off for the Patriots⚽️ pic.twitter.com/O76cmIxGaY They also posted a thread highlighting the team’s accomplishments and notable moments from the past season — including the fact that 17 former Patriots made their major league debuts this season. The 2024 season served up many highlights, including the launch of the Jersey Diners that took the nation by storm. Unprecedented exposure & sales followed, leading to the Jersey Diners being named @MiLB 's Best Alternate Identity of the Year and a Golden Bobblehead winner. pic.twitter.com/0uQSdMq9o3Memphis fights off No. 2 UConn in OT in Maui Invitational thriller

Patreon is one of the most popular public content creator funding platforms in the market. The company helped pioneer the content creator subscription services industry and remains a dominant force in the market. Today, Patreon has +8M active users, +279K content creators, and a growing number of strategic partnerships. All of these factors continue to drive demand for Patreon stocks. However, the company is privately held, meaning that pre-IPO shares are the best option for those seeking an ownership stake in the firm. Patreon's success, market positioning, and strong backing are all additional reasons why you should learn how to buy Patreon pre-IPO shares. Here's what you need to know. What is Patreon? Patreon is a public content creator funding application that enables creators to enhance their monetization efforts via subscription services and more. The company entered the market in 2013. It was founded by a developer named Sam Yam, and a musician named Jack Conte to provide creatives with additional revenue streams. Patreon’s launch was celebrated, and within the first 18 months, the platform secured 125,000 content creators. The platform had many unique characteristics that helped it create such a following. For one, it was free to start, meaning that content creators could focus their efforts on their art and offerings. Several features make Patreon a smart maneuver for creators. They can access a variety of tools designed specifically to help them build organic communities. For example, they can offer access to exclusive content and create and distribute digital assets, tickets, collaborations, contests, and even personalized messages. Creators can sell both digital and real-world merchandise while building up a subscription-based income from their community. For their effort, Patreon charges an 8-12% commission on their income and various payment processing fees. This simplistic and straightforward business model continues to bring success as the creator economy is now intertwined with Patreon on a new level. Today, Patreon remains a go-to option for content creators seeking to offset the demonetization or other methods used by big tech to reduce their revenue or censor their messages. This positioning adds to the overall perceived value that Patreon brings to the market and ensures that it will continue to see demand in the coming years. Historical Funding Rounds Summary of Patreon Funding: Funding Rounds Breakdown: Key Investors: Patreon has support from many prominent investors including Tiger Global Management, Woodline Partners, Wellington, Lone Pine Capital, New Enterprise Associates, DFJ Growth, New Enterprise Associates, Wellington, Glade Brook Capital, Thrive Capital, DFJ Growth, Index Ventures, Lone Pine Capital Glade Brook Capital, Index Ventures, Freestyle, Serj Tankian, Hannibal Burress, Initialized Capital, CRV, and more. Funding Data Sourced from Tracxn Why Invest in Patreon? There are multiple reasons why you might want to consider investing in Patreon Pre-IPO shares. For one, the company has a straightforward business model that continues to show profitability and potential. According to company documentation, Patreon’s economy is on the rise. Specifically, monthly payouts are up by 2.2% in 2024, pushing the total made by creators to +$8B. Patreon content creators now average around 60% more revenue compared to 2019. Another factor to consider is that Patreon remains In touch with the content creator community. For example, the management dropped adult-themed content support in 2017, broadening the appeal of the platform. At the time it reduced revenue but the losses were quickly recovered due to new clientele. There are several acquisitions that Patreon has made which enhanced its capabilities, and customer confidence. In 2015, the firm acquired the subscription platform Subbable and a year later, Memberful was acquired. These acquisitions provided the platform with additional features and technology. As a market leader and first mover, Patreon provides investors with a unique opportunity. The company hasn't posted any plans to host an IPO yet. However, if the company does signal intentions to go public, demand for its stock would increase significantly. How to Buy Patreon Pre-IPO Shares Patreon remains a privately held company, meaning that you will need to utilize a specialized approach to get access to shares. There are many analysts that believe the company may never hold public funding rounds and may instead decide to only host private funding. If so, here's what you need to consider. 1. Pre-IPO Secondary Marketplace Secondary markets are purpose-built exchanges that connect pre-IPO shareholders with potential investors. These marketplaces can offer these assets because they work closely with employees, early-stage investors, and venture capitalists, which are crucial to the company's pre-IPO growth. Investing in pre-IPO shares for Patreon could open the door for additional ROIs if the company's valuation is less than when its IPO launches. It's common for company valuations to increase following an IPO. As such, it makes sense to add pre-IPO shares to your portfolio before the firm announces plans to go public. Secondary marketplaces have many requirements. Here are some concerns you should be made aware of: Eligibility: Notably, this approach requires you to be an accredited investor, meaning you will have to show at least $1M in liquid assets to qualify. Liquidity : Pre-IPO shares can't be traded like regular shares. They often include some lockup restrictions that prevent you from trading them before the IPO. Some firms have permanent “no sell” clauses that prevent any transfer of the shares following your investment. Linqto is a reputable investment platform that connects accredited investors with pre-IPO shareholders in a secure manner. The network streamlines pre-IPO investing via an easy-to-navigate interface that provides access to all relevant data at a glance. Accredited investors seeking pre-IPO shares in Patreon should consider Linqto. Visit Linqto → 2. Private Equity Firms Private equity firms gain access to pre-IPO shares during investment rounds. They then offer these shares to high-net-worth accredited investors with a commission. Notably, private equity firms are known to have extra stipulations, including blocking the sale of shares for years in some cases. 3. Employee Equity Sales Many consider employee equity sales as the best way to acquire pre-IPO shares in Patreon. This method of acquiring pre-IPO shares requires you to connect with former employees. It's common for companies to issue shares as part of an incentive package. Notably, this profit-sharing method has become more popular, leading to more pre-IPO share opportunities for investors. Private Transactions : there are a lot of hoops you will need to jump through to complete a private pre-IPO transaction, including creating specific legal agreements, conducting valuations, and setting in place any limitations on the transfer of the asset. Brokerage : Brokers will take a lot of the confusion out of the pre-IPO process. These professionals can guide you through each step, ensuring full compliance and avoiding common errors untrained professionals make. There are several risks that you should consider before jumping into the pre-IPO shares investment arena. Here are the top concerns: Liquidity Risk If you are looking for an asset that you can sell right away, pre-IPO shares are not the best option. These investments can include sales and transfer clauses that prevent the transfer of the asset until certain criteria, such as the IPO's completion. It's even common for pre-IPO shares to require you to wait years before gaining the ability to sell your assets. Regulatory Risk The blockchain market has seen considerable scrutiny from regulators and lawmakers. While the technology is far better understood than in its early days, there are still many lawmakers who see it as a threat to the traditional financial system. As such, you need to always consider how new regulations could affect the value of your pre-IPO shares. Market Risk Purchasing pre-IPO shares in Patreon means that you stand behind the project and its team. The company has secured a reputation for excellence and has previously expressed a desire to go public. However, no concrete data has been provided yet. As such, it's vital to understand that the blockchain market is an active space that experiences strong fluctuations that could result in a different share value between now and any future IPO launch. Valuation of Patreon and Future IPO Patreon's valuation is $4B as of Apr 07, 2021. The company has achieved Unicorn status due to its pioneering efforts in the content creator markets. Patreon is seen by many as an essential tool to deal with increased censorship and demonetization from the tech giants including Meta, Youtube, Google, and more. Patreon continues to expand its community and features. The company has shown a willingness to adapt to the fast-changing market, enabling its users to take advantage of the latest and greatest options, including NFTs (non-fungible tokens) and more. All of these factors demonstrate why so many competitors have failed in their efforts to remove Patreaon from among the top options. It's likely that Patreon could decide to go public in the coming years. It already has strong backing from the investor community and the public. This decision could result in one of the largest and most anticipated IPOs to date. For now, the only option is pre-IPO shares. Conclusion Holding Patreon Pre-IPO shares opens the door for lots of upside potential. The company has proven to be reliable, secure, transparent, and capable of working with regulators when needed. All of these factors have cemented Patreon in the content creator community as a valuable resource to be protected. There are still several risks involved when investing in pre-IPO shares that you need to consider. There’s no guarantee that the value of your pre-IPO shares will increase or that the company will decide to go public. As such, you need to conduct in-depth research into Patreon's financials and business model prior to making any final decisions. You should consult a financial expert to ensure that Patreon Pre-IPO shares fall within your risk appetite. For those who complete their research and find the asset to be a smart maneuver, there’s lots of upside potential. Learn about Other Pre-IPO Opportunities Now Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, legal, or investment advice. Pre-IPO shares are typically available only to accredited investors and carry significant risk. Always perform thorough due diligence and consult a financial advisor or legal expert before making investment decisions.India To Host WAVES Summit In February: PM Modi

Prophet of the post-presidency: how Jimmy Carter changed the worldJimmy Carter, the 39th US president, has died at 100AP Sports SummaryBrief at 3:10 p.m. EST

Fish photos hazardous to their health? Tips for safer catch and releaseBy Aubrey Rose A. Inosante, Reporter TREASURY bill (T-bill) rates may decline amid the worsening Russia-Ukraine conflict and as markets await further policy signals from the US Federal Reserve. “The government securities market was just quiet today as most just stayed on the sidelines amid the Ukraine-Russia geopolitical tension and while awaiting developments for a clearer policy path,” a trader said in an e-mail on Friday. Russia fired a hypersonic intermediate-range ballistic missile at the Ukrainian city of Dnipro on Thursday in response to the US and UK’s allowing Kyiv to strike Russian territory with advanced Western weapons, in a further escalation of the 33-month-old war, Reuters reported. The Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) will auction P15 billion in T-bills on Monday — P5 billion each in 91-, 182- and 364-day debt. On Tuesday, the BTr will also sell P15 billion in reissued five-year Treasury bonds (T-bonds) with a remaining life of four years and five months. The average T-bill yields could fall amid uncertainty about President-elect Donald J. Trump’s economic policies, Michael L. Ricafort, chief economist at Rizal Commercial Banking Corp., said in a Viber message. “The markets priced in possible protectionist policies by Trump that could lead to some increase in US inflation,” he said in a Viber message. At the secondary market, the 91-, 182- and 364-day T-bills fell across the board, based on PHP Bloomberg Valuation Service Reference Rates data as of Nov. 22 posted on the Philippine Dealing System website. Last week, the BTr raised P22.6 billion in T-bills as bids reached P51.665 billion, more than twice the amount on offer but lower than the P59.425 billion in tenders a week earlier. It borrowed P9.1 billion as planned in 91-day T-bills, higher than the programmed P6.5 billion, as tenders reached P20.095 billion. For the 182-day debt, the government fully awarded P6.5 billion, as bids reached P12.76 billion. The Treasury also raised P7 billion from 364-day bills as demand hit P18.81 billion. Economists have warned that Mr. Trump’s proposed policies could stoke inflation and lead to fewer Fed rate cuts. The US Federal Reserve would trim interest rates next month but make shallower cuts in 2025 than expected just a month ago due to the risk of higher inflation from Mr. Trump’s proposed policies, according to most economists in a Reuters poll. Prospects for a price resurgence based on his planned policies, including higher tariffs and tax reductions, led markets to nearly halve rate cut pricing to about 75 basis points by end-2025 over the past few weeks. Relentless economic strength, stubborn inflation and stock markets flirting with record highs have become barriers against hasty rate cuts. Fed Chairman Jerome H. Powell last week said “the economy is not sending any signals that we need to be in a hurry to lower rates.” The government seeks to raise P90 billion from the domestic market in December — P60 billion in T-bills and P30 billion in T-bonds. The government borrows from local and foreign sources to help fund its budget deficit, which is capped at P1.48 trillion or 5.6% of gross domestic product this year.Oklahoma State's defense is about to set the wrong kinds of records, what needs to change?PPA Asia and MLP Asia Set to Launch, Bringing World-Class Pro Pickleball to the World's Most Populous Continent

AP News Summary at 6:42 p.m. ESTEXCLUSIVE Inside the insidious Democratic plot to keep Biden in office using harassment tactics out of a spy novel The plan included sending clowns and musicians to harass No Labels founder The proposal also suggested 'bird dogging' members of Congress Read all the details of the plan below By EMILY GOODIN, SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT IN WASHINGTON D.C. Published: 20:20 GMT, 24 November 2024 | Updated: 20:54 GMT, 24 November 2024 e-mail 18 View comments Democratic allies of Joe Biden plotted a secret harassment campaign to keep a third-party challenger out of the 2024 election in order to ensure his victory, even as polls showed voters wanted another option and there were concerns about the president's health. Their plan included 'bird dogging' members of Congress who would support such an option by sending activists to confront them at their offices. It also details a target harassment campaign against No Labels founder Nancy Jacobson and her husband, Mark Penn, a longtime Democratic operative. The plan was to send clowns to block their Georgetown home and drive their neighbors crazy with early morning noise. No Labels - which Penn is not a part of - was running a $70 million effort to field an alternative presidential candidate and get a third-party line on state ballots. But the centrist group dropped its efforts after Biden's allies damaged their ability to recruit a contender. No Labels is now fighting back in federal court and public documents show an incredible proposal from Democrat strategists to clear the way for Biden to win a second term, using techniques straight out of a spy novel. 'Everyone loves a good wake up action- especially the neighbors,' the email read. 'For this, we'd show up at 6am with a truck carrying musical performers and activists marching and chanting. It usually lasts for an hour. We can hire getty to get the event on the wire,' a Democratic strategist wrote in emails exchanged between various people involved with efforts to oppose No Labels. Other options for targeting the couple included 'hire clowns to hangout on their block,' embarrassing them at the annual White House Correspondents' Association dinner and targeting them with negative ads in a local Georgetown society newspaper. 'The overall cost of this proposal is $180,000 on the low range to $400,000 for 2-4 months of intense activity,' the email read. Not all the documents in the case have been made public so the final figure could be larger. It's also unclear how deeply involved top White House officials and Democratic Party leaders were in the plan. President Joe Biden's allies plotted a secret campaign to keep him in office The proposal included tactics to harass No Labels founder Nancy Jacobson and her husband Mark Penn The emails were sent in May 2023 when the full extent of Biden's health problems remained hidden from the public. Donald Trump had yet clinch the Republican nomination but was the frontrunner. Polls at the time showed voters were desperate from a third option. An NBC News poll released in April found 60% of U.S. adults did not want Trump to run, and 70% did not want Biden to run. Read More Trump Cabinet pick facing most jeopardy in Senate confirmation hearings No Labels was exploring a 'unity ticket' with the goal of giving Americans that option. Democratic operatives, obviously worried about situation, plotted to stop it. Many Democratic groups publicly slammed No Labels at the time, accusing the group of trying to ensure Trump's re-election. But the court documents reveal an entire second level of tactics that go behind the norms of public editorials and on-the-record quotes. The proposal also included plans to 'bird dog' members of Congress who were part of the Problems Solvers Caucus, a group No Labels founded to find bipartisan solutions to the nation's problems. 'One important and effective method to uplift this battle against No Labels is to go directly to their minions in Congress,' the proposal read. 'We will have activists calmly talk to them in the hallways while being recorded. We can then post and share the good videos. We can hit up the entire Problem Solvers Caucus in the House and their key allies in the Senate.' 'We will name and shame the members of the Problem Solvers Caucus who are affiliated with No Labels,' the memo vowed. Ultimately the proposal was never adopted. The Washington Post first reported some of the details of the campaign. DailyMail.com is the first to publish the entire memo outlining the harassment campaign. The detailed proposal outlined by Democratic strategists LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman is a prominent Biden supporter and the new George Soros of political funding One of the men behind the emails Dmitri Mehlhorn, a co-founder of Investing in US, a political operation funded by LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman. Hoffman is the new George Soros of political funding and he was heavily invested in Biden having a second term. He donated $2 million to help fund the campaign during the New Hampshire primary that urged Democratic voters to write Biden's name on New Hampshire primary ballots. Biden hadn't registered for the New Hampshire primary to comply with a new Democratic National Committee rule that made South Carolina the first state to hold a primary. New Hampshire held its first-in-the-nation primary anyway, which Biden won as a write-in. Hoffman is a massive anti-Trumper. He helped fund writer E. Jean Carroll's sexual assault suit against Trump and supported former Rep. Liz Cheney's 2022 re-election bid, which ultimately failed. He and Mehlhorn split in July 2024 after Mehlhorn had to apologize for comments he made after the assassination attempt on Trump in Butler, Pa., which Mehlhorn suggested was staged. Mehlhorn left Investing in US and joined the Lincoln Project. Biden, after his disastrous debate with Trump in July, ultimately exited the presidential race. Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee and lost to Trump in a landslide. Joe Biden Politics Share or comment on this article: Inside the insidious Democratic plot to keep Biden in office using harassment tactics out of a spy novel e-mail Add comment

Trump selects longtime adviser Keith Kellogg as special envoy for Ukraine and RussiaThousands still queuing to vote after Namibia polls close

Subscribe to our newsletter Privacy Policy Success! Your account was created and you’re signed in. Please visit My Account to verify and manage your account. An account was already registered with this email. Please check your inbox for an authentication link. Support Independent Arts Journalism As an independent publication, we rely on readers like you to fund our journalism. If you value our coverage and want to support more of it, consider becoming a member today . Already a member? Sign in here. We rely on readers like you to fund our journalism. If you value our coverage and want to support more of it, please join us as a member . DETROIT — Food has always played a vital role in fostering and maintaining community. It’s a key component of cultural heritage: How food is prepared, served, and shared is oftentimes communal and ritualistic. Food tells us stories — be they personal, historical, or social. And food culture is a form of art. The Art of Dining: Food Culture in the Islamic World , currently on view at the Detroit Institute of Arts, transforms meals into narrative experiences, showing how food connects people not only to their roots, but also to each another. The exhibition showcases almost 230 pieces, spanning centuries and ranging from cooking vessels to paintings, from 30 public and private collections across the world. Our introduction to this realm comes initially from a map of the Southwest Asia and North Africa (SWANA) region, which greets the visitor as they enter the show. Several cities are highlighted on this map: Istanbul, Cairo, Mecca, Baghdad, Isfahan, and Delhi. The captions explain that these sites have been significant for trade, artistic production, and pilgrimage. They were also both culturally and historically important for Islam, the exhibition posits, and they hold a special place for the food culture that was nurtured in historically Muslim-majority regions of the world. What makes this show truly commendable is its expansive perspective on food. The works on view emphasize everything associated with the craft of dining. Steel fruit sculptures (pear, quince, melon) made for the processions commemorating the martyrdom of Al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī (626–80), a grandson of the Prophet Muhammad and the third Shia imam , are on display. The exhibit also features different types of spice dishes, tin-glazed plates with peacock feather patterns, glazed porcelain bowls, copper alloy cauldrons, flasks, and drinking vessels. It draws our attention to the processes of preparation, presentation, and enjoyment associated with food culture, such as the hospitality of hand washing, demonstrated via an ewer from Iran or Iraq circa the 1200s; a basin from Egypt dating from the 1300s; and even a description of dining etiquette from the Sunni polyhistor and mujaddid (or “one who brings renewal to the religion”) Al-Ghazali (1058–1111). Get the latest art news, reviews and opinions from Hyperallergic. Daily Weekly Opportunities The Art of Dining also explores the etiquette of eating across this realm. In one large room, a table invites us to a digitally created sufra (floor spread) meal where adapted historical dishes, prepared by chef Najmieh Batmanglij , are projected at the center of each plate. There is even a cooking display with multiple televisions where you can watch the preparation of different dishes live on a screen. Cookbooks, handbooks for health, and a glimpse into the kitchens and pantries that supported food culture throughout the Islamic cultures emphasized in the show are dispersed throughout the galleries. Stories around food further narrate the visitor’s journey. Medieval illuminated manuscripts draw attention to images of picnics; depictions of scenes known as maqama (meaning “assembly” in Arabic) that would have been read out loud at social gatherings; and banquet scenes from a copy of the Shahnama (Book of Kings) of Firdawsi. Together, these works foreground the importance of hospitality in class and political power. They illustrate how culinary traditions and communal meals serve as vital expressions of identity and social cohesion within various cultural and class contexts. These books are placed alongside musical instruments — a kamancha made from fish skin from the 1800s, the taus (meaning “peacock” in Persian) from 19th-century India, the oud of the Greek Maol (Emmanuel Venios) — calling to mind the practices of entertainment present in these cities and in Islamic courts. At one point, the viewer is also invited to join the table by sharing on circular, blank white pages “how food connected you to people, places, and memories.” The exhibition ends with a contemporary multimedia installation by Iraqi-born artist Sadik Kwaish Alfraji titled “A Thread of Light Between My Mother’s Fingers and Heaven.” This captivatingly layered piece is influenced by the artist’s memories of his mother and the bread she baked as they gathered as a family around their table in Baghdad. The black and white sketched animations reflect how memories and food intertwine to create a tapestry of shared experiences, evoking nostalgia and a profound sense of identity that transcends time and place. Though not all the objects on display serve religious functions, the show paints a well-rounded picture of food culture in Islam. The Art of Dining was originally organized and displayed by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. For the DIA iteration, the curators made modifications in response to feedback that called for a more multicultural perspective, as opposed to one that overly homogenizes what’s referred to here as the Islamic world. This approach is evident as the exhibition acknowledges how the everyday lives of different ethnoreligious cultures in these regions were informed by different or varying practices. While looking at food cultures through the lens of intercultural connection added complexity that was presumably lacking in the LACMA version, the DIA’s presentation would have been made stronger by recognizing the non-Islamic peoples who lived in these cities and across the SWANA region. Although these communities — for example, Greek, Chaldean, and Armenian — may not have practiced the Islamic faith, their customs around food were influenced by these same practices. Though a section of the exhibit acknowledges shared cultures in tableware from this region, identifying Chinese porcelain, Ottoman ceramics, and Italian pottery as points of connection, there are many other examples of commonalities around food that could have helped represent links between communities across these geographies. The city of Istanbul — with its far-reaching Byzantine, Cilician Armenian, Jewish, and Parthian presence — is one such example where multiple influences collectively shaped the cultural identity of its premodern history. Using the term “Islamicate,” coined by historian Marshall Hodgson, could have alluded to the importance of Islam as a cultural force that influenced non-Muslims in the region, while also acknowledging their presence and contribution to the development of a sociopolitical and economic cosmos there. Doing so would have also reinforced the exhibit’s already strong foundation by showcasing Islamicate civilization as an integral component of world history and Islam’s influence upon it — especially through the exquisite ways in which it highlighted the history of food culture as a unifying element within this narrative. The Art of Dining: Food Culture in the Islamic World continues at the Detroit Institute of Arts (5200 Woodward Avenue, Detroit, Michigan) through January 5, 2025. The exhibition was organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. We hope you enjoyed this article! Before you keep reading, please consider supporting Hyperallergic ’s journalism during a time when independent, critical reporting is increasingly scarce. Unlike many in the art world, we are not beholden to large corporations or billionaires. Our journalism is funded by readers like you , ensuring integrity and independence in our coverage. We strive to offer trustworthy perspectives on everything from art history to contemporary art. We spotlight artist-led social movements, uncover overlooked stories, and challenge established norms to make art more inclusive and accessible. With your support, we can continue to provide global coverage without the elitism often found in art journalism. If you can, please join us as a member today . Millions rely on Hyperallergic for free, reliable information. By becoming a member, you help keep our journalism free, independent, and accessible to all. Thank you for reading. Share Copied to clipboard Mail Bluesky Threads LinkedIn Facebook