Jimmy Carter redefined his legacy after his presidency. Other presidents, especially Hoover and Nixon, tried but failed to outrun or outwork their unhappy presidential legacies. Like John Quincy Adams before him, Carter will mostly be remembered for what came after his time in the White House rather than those four years in it—as he should be.

Perhaps more than any single post-World War II president, Carter changed the way many saw the U.S. by attempting to inject American values of altruism, democracy and human rights into foreign policy.