Jimmy Carter’s melancholy fate was to be a largely derivative figure: He was a reaction against his elected predecessor and the precursor of his successor. Richard Nixon made Carter tempting; Carter made Ronald Reagan necessary.The deceits and crimes of Nixon’s imperial presidency bred Carter’s pompous crusade against pomp. Carter proclaimed “I’ll never lie to you” while claiming that he was a “nuclear physicist.” He denied saying what a tape proved he said about Lyndon Johnson’s “lying, cheating and distorting the truth.”Carter’s signature achievement, peace between Israel and Egypt, diminished the threat of another conventional Middle East war. In his post-presidency...