James Carroll: In Search of a Common Humanity
James Carroll was born in Chicago in 1943, and raised in Washington D.C. where his father, an Air Force general, served as the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. He is the author of numerous novels including the New York Times bestsellers Mortal Friends(1978), Family Trade (1982), and Prince of Peace (1984). The City Below (1994) andSecret Father (2003) were both named Notable Books of the Year by the New York Times.
Carroll has authored many prominent works of nonfiction as well. His memoir, An American Requiem: God, My Father, and the War that Came Between Us, received numerous awards, including the 1996 National Book Award for nonfiction. His bookConstantine’s Sword: The Church and the Jews: A History, published in 2001, was a New York Times bestseller and was honored as one of the Best Books of 2001 by The Los Angeles Times. Responding to the Catholic sex abuse crisis in 2002, he publishedToward a New Catholic Church: The Promise of Reform. Crusade: Chronicles of an Unjust War, which appeared in 2004, isadapted from his Boston Globe columns since 9/11. His most recent book, House of War: The Pentagon and the Disastrous Rise of American Power, a History of the Pentagon, which The Chicago Tribune called “the first great nonfiction book of the new millennium,” was published last year.
Carroll’s essays and articles have appeared in The New Yorker, Daedalus, and other publications. His op-ed column has run weekly in the Boston Globe since 1992.
This event was co-sponsored by the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University, which contains Mr. Carroll’s collected papers.