Resumo de Memories Of A Rural Boyhood - PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER

Former President Jimmy Carter
has turned out to be a prolific author, and his latest book may be his best
effort yet. An Hour Before Daylight: Memories of a Rural Boyhood is
likely to become a classic. With a sharper focus than other authors have
managed, Carter vividly recalls the experiences of his youth during the Great
Depression. Those who grew up during that time will savor his description of
the years of struggle and sacrifice. For the younger generation, the book
should serve as a history lesson of a bygone era that was rich in values, if
not money.

The Carters of Georgia were
not wealthy, but they had a comfortable life compared to the folks around them,
some of whom were sharecroppers. The author notes that there was a general
condemnation of the system whereby landowners set aside a portion of land that
was then cultivated by someone else on a share basis. But Carter believes that,
despite the abuses, it would have been difficult, if not impossible, to devise
a system that worked better.

Carter examines sharecropping with a sympathetic eye and looks at politics
with considerable understanding. He writes about this time of stark reality
with skill and wonderful detail. The reader learns that millions of young
people survived the Great Depression and near-poverty because they didn''t know
they were poor. Because the folks on the next farm didn''t have much either,
many children lacked a basis of comparison. Insights like these make Carter''s
book truly illuminating.

Over the course of An Hour
Before Daylight, the author examines the lives of his siblings, his near-relatives
and the black people who had a profound influence on his life. He looks at his
parents with particular sympathy. His father, a skilled farmer, was a vigilant
segregationist, his well-read mother a nurse. The family portrait is fleshed
out further with Carter''s boyhood friends, scenes of life on the farm, and the
simple pleasures that characterized the epoch.

Carter has dedicated this book to his new grandson Hugo with the wish that it might
someday let him better comprehend the lives of his ancestors. One hopes that
Hugo will indeed read this book, for it is a gem that will be worth looking
into time and again. And that goes for every reader, regardless of age.

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