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Brinkley writes at .night, from 10 p.m. until 3:30 or 4 a.m.,?when ?there are no distractions.?
Carter was only 56 when he left the White House in January 1981 after his defeated bid for election to a second term.
Since then, ?he?s learned a lot about the world,? Brinkley said. ?He?d be a better president now, because he?s not quite so naive.? ?The Unfinished Presidency? is not the book Brinkley intended to write.
He was interviewing Georgians about Carter?s election as governor when, in late 1994, Carter?s post-presidential work surged to national and international attention.
?Wherever I went,? Brinkley writes, ?few seemed interested in Carter?s early years; people were far
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Presidency
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more curious about the political resurrection that had turned 1980?s mal-aise-ridden loser into 1994?s distinguished global peacemaker.?
Brinkley told staff at the Carter ^Center in Atlanta, which he calls Carter?s ?institutional legacy to peace, ?democracy, health and human rights,? that he might interrupt his work on the first of a projected three-volume biography of Carter to write a short book on his post-presidency.
Soon after, he received a note from Carter offering him an opportunity to observe Carter at work.
Brinkley accepted, with two conditions: that he would have full access to Carter?s post-presidential papers
? and trip reports, and that the biogra-'phy would be unauthorized, so he would not be hamstrung in drawing his own conclusions about the man.
The 586-page book is a hefty one, 'but 106 of those pages contain acknowledgments, notes, bibliography and index.
Ambrose, who calls Carter ?the ?most active and influential former president since Teddy Roosevelt,? \also gives accolades to Brinkley as
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Douglas Brinkley?s book, ?The Unfinished Presidency,? focuses on Jimmy Carter?s life after his presidency. Brinkley, a history professor and director of the Eisenhower Center at the University of New Orleans, lives in Bay St. Louis.
Author Douglas Brinkley
?the best of the new generation of American historians.?
Carter has spent the years since he left the White House tackling problems in the world?s most volatile trouble spots, mediating foreign disputes, civil wars and political transitions.
He has become a pioneer in election monitoring techniques.
And Brinkley says Carter has done more charity work and more to champion the poor and disenfranchised
than any other ex-president.
Writes Brinkley: ?What Carter really wanted was to find some way to continue the unfinished business of his presidency, and he made no secret of this from the start.?
When Ambrose retired four years ago, he picked Brinkley to succeed him as director at the Eisenhower Center.
?I was living in the French Quarter,? Brinkley said. ?Steve goes to Montana in the summers. He?s been my mentor. We?ve been good friends.?
Ambrose invited Brinkley to live in his Bay St Louis house while he was away, and Brinkley accepted.
?I spent two summers at Steve?s house. And we fell in love with Bay St. Louis ? jogging along the beach clearing your head, the people in town, all the local businesses, taking bike rides.?
He and his fiancee, Tammy Sima-lore, will be married in Bay St. Louis in September.
Brinkley?s book signing Wednesday in Bay St. Louis will precede a, national tour that includes New Or-' leans, Washington, D.C., Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego and Atlanta.