James Carroll, “one of the most adept and versatile writers on the American scene today” (Denver Post), is the author of ten novels and seven works of non-fiction, including the National Book Award winning An American Requiem; the New York Times bestselling Constantine's Sword, now an acclaimed documentary; House of War, which won the first PEN-Galbraith Award; and Jerusalem, Jerusalem: How the Ancient City Ignited Our Modern World, which was named a 2011 Best Book by Publishers Weekly. In 2012, he contributed one of two introductions to Vatican II: The Essential Texts (The other is by Benedict XVI). His Boston Globe columns were honored with the 2012 Scripps Howard Award for Best Commentary. He lectures widely, both in the United States and abroad.
James Carroll is Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence at Suffolk University in Boston, where he lives with his wife, the novelist Alexandra Marshall.
2012 Scripps Howard
National Journalism Award
for Commentary
James Carroll
Columns, The Boston Globe
Judges comment:
"James Carroll's elegant style and historical depth of knowledge combine with his thoughtful, moral point of view to consistently provide his readers with a unique voice. He understands his community but also brings understanding and knowledge to those outside of it."
Globe columnist James Carroll wins Scripps Howard Journalism Award for Commentary
http://www.boston.com/metrodesk/2013/03/15/globe-columnist-james-carroll-wins-scripps-howard-journalism-award-for-commentary/gUjeRKev5JZMm0vz1O0TZP/story.html
TWELVE BOSTON GLOBE COLUMNS FROM 2012
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1.1-2-12 “THE UNIFYING FORCE OF POLITICAL RITUAL”
(Re first Republican primary) “ Presidential elections are the great American novel...Humans have a species-wide instinct to refuse to be defeated by experience. The American version of that life-force is what locks us into the drama of politics.”
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2.2-6-12 “IN TELEVISION, BOTH MIRROR AND CATHARSIS.”
(Re PBS blockbusters‘Civil War,’ ‘Brideshead Revisited,’ and ‘Downtown Abbey’): “Some struggles are too deep for words, and can be grappled with more by implication and sublimation than by confrontation.”
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3.2-20-12 “BIRTH CONTROL AND CHURCH POWER GRAB”
“Conservative Republicans, knowing which buttons to push, have successfully conscripted the Catholic hierarchy into the battle to unseat President Obama...[the bishops] brought this embarrassment on themselves. A short history of the Catholic contraceptive argument shows how.”
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4.3-19-12 “AN ERA, SHELVED”
“Thomas Jefferson was a 25-year-old lawyer when the Encyclical Britannica began publishing...The end of this printed resource, and of the theory of knowledge it represents, has implications for the cultural divide that shows up in arguments over evolution, sexuality, and ‘values.’”
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5.4-2-12 “GOOD FRIDAY AND THE CIVIL WAR”
“On April 14, exactly four years to the day after the Union flag was lowered at Fort Sumter, it was once again raised - a defining symbol of the end of the Civil War. That evening, President and Mrs. Lincoln went to Ford’s Theater. It was Good Friday.”
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6.4-16-12 “MIKE WALLACE & HIS BLUES BROTHERS”
“When Wallace, Buchwald, and Styron put their unwilled self-obsession aside to bring their depression into the light of public discussion, they were thinking of others.”
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7.8-6-12 “DARK FANTASY IN ACTION”
(Re Aurora & ‘The Dark Knight’): “But what happens when a new and ever more vivid form of narrative alters the delicate balance between image and the act?...blurred distinctions between watching and doing, between war and detached manipulation of technology... a precious psychological barrier [is] being lowered. A dark night falling.”
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8.8-20-12 “THE SCIENCE GAP”
“Warning to readers: The following alarm...is bring sounded by a guy who (to my undying shame) flunked high school chemistry. If a right brainer like me sees what’s wrong with the growing gap between scientific endeavor and public support for science, the problem must be serious.”
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9.9-3-12 “A LEAP FOR MANKIND, BUT IN WHICH DIRECTION?”
(Re Neil Armstrong)“Instead of opening the way to a realm of limitless possibility, the event marked the start of a harsh reckoning with human limits...We motes of cosmic dust achieve glory not by imagining ourselves as masters of the universe, but by fully knowing our place in it. Glory enough.”
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10.9-30-12 “THE CHURCH’S LOST REVOLUTION”
“Imagine if the other great reform movements of the 1960s had been rolled back...The most profound religious transformation of the time was cut short, with implications far beyond Catholicism...Yet this anniversary is a reminder of the wonder that Vatican II occurred at all.”
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11.11-12-12 “UNNECESSARY WARS’ MORAL TOLL ON SOLDIERS”
“Citizens, therefore, have a double obligation to greet veterans by saying, ‘Thank you for your service.’ But in fact our unnecessary wars are defined by the disservice they do to veterans. Political exploitation of their heroism keeps in place the pillars of the next mistake, and it, too, will have heroes.”
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12.12-10-12 “ISRAEL MUST NOT DISMISS OUTRAGE OVER SETTLEMENTS”
“A government’s duty to maintain the physical security of its people is matched by the obligation to safeguard its moral standing among nations. Yet Israel’s Likud government is fatally undermining that standing.”
Read James Carroll’s recent Boston Globe columns here
