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Jimmy Carter's Economy: Policy in an Age of Limits. By W. Carl Biven. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002. xvi, 346 pp. $45.00, ISBN 0-8078-2738-X.)
This is a West Wing account of economic policy in the Carter administration. The presidential role remains subordinate to the rest of the cast, whose conflicts, advice, and retrospective assessments take the center stage. And also like the TV show, everything else that happens in the world, such as the 1979 Middle East oil shock and Edward Kennedy's 1980 primary challenge, seems to appear suddenly, from off stage, and relevant only insofar as these events make life difficult for the key advisers.
The Carter administration did face some daunting problems. When Jimmy Carter took office early in 1977, the nation was emerging from the longest and deepest recession...