Early career Carr first went to work for the
Council on Foreign Relations after high school as a library assistant, and rose during his college year summers (and a semester off) to research assistant. He also wrote freelance articles on global issues. This assisted noted historian and expert on U.S. foreign policy
James Chace in helping Carr, after he left
New York University, to get a job as a researcher and editorial assistant for the
Foreign Affairs Quarterly, where Chace was managing editor. In 1980, Carr left
Foreign Affairs to fine-tune and publish his first novel,
Casing the Promised Land, a coming of age story about three young men in New York City. It was dedicated to "Everyone who fed me and to: James Chace". Nearly 20 years after
Casing the Promised Land was published, the extreme prices that book dealers were offering for the volume forced Carr to post this "self-criticism" on the book's Amazon.com page: "I am the author of this book. It has a few good scenes, but is essentially '
roman à clef' nonsense that every writer has to get out of his system early on. Do yourself a favor and read
anything else I've written (you'll be doing me a favor, too). Forgive the follies of youth" (emphasis in the original). James Chace brought Carr on to organize and edit his acclaimed book,
Endless War, dealing with the crisis in Central America, which Carr then covered as a freelance journalist for the
Berkshire Eagle and
The New York Times. In 1989 he became a contributing editor to
MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History, a biography, and the first of his books to receive wide recognition. Carr was also active in
Hollywood in the 1980s and '90s as a screenwriter and producer. He wrote one movie for television,
Bad Attitudes (1991), but the revision and execution of his script deeply disappointed him.
1990s Carr returned to New York to begin researching and writing what would prove his breakthrough novel,
The Alienist, published in 1994. The book became an international bestseller and has been translated into more than 24 languages. Winner of the 1995 Anthony Award Carr's lifelong interest in violence, which initially fed his study of military history, expanded into a study of serial killers with the advent of the Son of Sam murders of 1976–1977. For his next novel, Carr brought back the principals from
The Alienist to solve another serial murder case in
The Angel of Darkness, published in 1997. The sequel not only sold more copies than its predecessor, it received more critical acclaim. This time, the killer at the center of the hunt is a female murdering infants. The narrator for this adventure is Stevie Taggart, the street urchin Dr. Laszlo Kreizler saved from jail years earlier. When asked about the subject matter, Carr stated, "You want to believe that there's one relationship in life that's beyond betrayal—a relationship that's beyond that kind of hurt—and there isn't. The simple fact is, if the mothers that we see in the press are doing this kind of stuff, then the numbers who are actually doing it are probably much higher." He also published widely recognized essays on the Somalia intervention ("The Consequences of Somalia") on the corruption and what he saw as the immorality of the CIA ("Aldrich Ames and the Conduct of American Intelligence"), and the pointlessness of trying to pursue purely "humanitarian" military interventions, which the Clinton administration was trying to establish as a doctrine ("The Humanitarian Illusion"), along with numerous other security and military policy pieces. In recognition of these efforts,
Random House appointed Carr editor for the
Modern Library War series. Carr was also a member of their Modern Library Board. As such, in 1998 and 1999, he participated in the "100 best" project, voting on the 100 best novels and 100 best non-fiction works of the 20th century.
Later career In 2000, Carr published his next novel,
Killing Time, another dystopian tale of the future, this time the near future: 2023. First serialized in
Time magazine in 1999. The book finds a world with an abundance of information too easily manipulated, thus frequently obscuring reality. The characters travel from New York to the jungles of Africa in their quest to use such manipulation for the benefit of mankind, only to find themselves enmeshed in the central tragic paradox of their efforts, summed up best in a line from the book that is now a commonplace: "Information is not knowledge". Although some agreed with
USA Today that
Killing Time was "a techno-terrifying tale of the information age run amok" and "a daring departure from the successful Alienist formula, but Carr is still a master of the cliffhanger, serving up a non-stop thrill ride as the story builds to a surprising finish", many found its stark view of information manipulation and its consequences too pessimistic, and the book was only briefly a
New York Times bestseller. Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, which were along the lines that Carr had warned of in his writings on terrorism, he returned to the subject, using his "Terrorism as Warfare" piece as the basis for his best-selling, highly acclaimed but controversial book,
The Lessons of Terror: A History of Warfare Against Civilians. Published in 2002, this study of the history of terrorism from ancient Rome to the present was among the first to provide a precise definition of terrorism, one that has endured and made the book a landmark book in the field: Once again, reviews were extreme but mixed: some did not share the opinion of
the Christian Science Monitor, which foretold correctly that, "After the deadly attacks against the United States, many Americans may now find Carr's earlier arguments prescient and his approach the only one that has a chance of working;" instead, many critics agreed with
Newsweek opinion that, "
The Lessons of Terror is so earnest, so well informed and so outrageous ... that almost any reader will find something to love and something that will make you want to throw the book across the room. It is, in short, pure Carr." But the work achieved the influence among military historians, one of the most eminent of whom,
John Lynn, subsequently declared, in his own ensuing volume,
Battle: a History of Combat and Culture, that Carr's "insistence that Terrorism [sic] can be traced back to the ancient world and that great armies and great states have engaged in attacks on civilians designed to intimidate and terrorize them is important in both obvious and subtle ways", as well as among terrorism experts, and the military and defense communities that Carr had sought; and it formed the basis of his deeper involvement in an advisory capacity for members of the government. Shortly after its publication, he testified before the House Subcommittee on National Security, met privately with Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld to discuss the future of the war on terrorism, and served as a guest speaker on every major network and many cable news outlets during the American invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Carr was scheduled to appear on February 6, 2002, at the Council on Foreign Relations to discuss his book,
The Lessons of Terror. On February 4, 2002, the appearance was cancelled. Various reasons for the halting of the engagement were put forth in the media. One council member was told there was a scheduling conflict; others alleged not enough members signed up; yet Carr believed the real reason was due to his criticisms of Henry Kissinger, who was a member of the council. Bard College had asked Carr, in 2003, to speak on the topic of Imperial America. He furthered his relationship with Bard as a visiting professor of history from 2004 to 2005 teaching courses ranging from World Military History to the History of American Intelligence to the History of Insurgencies and Counter Insurgencies. He also taught a course in Criminal Profiling at
John Jay College in Manhattan. In 2007, he again participated in the Bard Globalization and International Affairs Program's Speakers Series speaking on the topic of anticipating counter insurgency in Iraq. On September 10, 2002, Carr participated in the Bard's Globalization and International Affairs Program panel discussions to mark the events of September 11, 2001, discussing the repercussions of the attacks on the World Trade Center, Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and the Pentagon. In 2013, Bard hosted a six-week academic exchange program on foreign policy with the U.S. State Department, titled, "Grand Strategy in Context: Institutions, People, and the Making of U.S. Foreign Policy". In 2005 Carr published
The Italian Secretary, subtitled
A Further Adventure of Sherlock Holmes. The project was initially to be part of an anthology of new Sherlock Holmes stories by modern mystery writers. When asked why he took on this project, Carr responded, "I think my interest in Holmes is probably like a lot of authors'. There are authors for whom the Holmes stories are part of the beginning of their decision to become writers, especially writers who aspire to popular fiction that has a bit more to it." Carr's next fiction endeavor, an ambitious volume he had been tinkering with since the 1980s, was published under the title
The Legend of Broken in 2012. This work of speculative history set during a time period we know little about—the Dark Ages—imagines a multilayered tale where cultures collide in their bid to rule a kingdom where the borders of the natural world seem to almost bleed over into the unnatural, at times, although Carr was adamant in his declaration that the book was
not a work of fantasy. The fictional kingdom of Broken occupies the part of modern Germany known as the Harz Mountains, in particular the mountain peak known as Brocken, which for centuries had been considered the seat of supernatural doings, because, Carr demonstrates, of the ignorance and superstition of man. As the book progresses we see how the word "broken" pertains, not only to the city, but also to the characters. The book is an allegory, a
cautionary tale for our own time that
The Washington Post declared, "an excellent and old-fashioned entertainment ...
The Legend of Broken seamlessly blends epic adventure with serious research and asks questions that men and women grappled with in the Dark Ages and still do today." Carr spent several years researching and writing his final novel,
Surrender, New York, published August 23, 2016, by Penguin Random House. He stated, "This book is essentially a modern application of the principles and theories of Dr. Laszlo Kreizler to criminal behavior especially that directed at children." After many failed attempts at adapting
The Alienist to film, Paramount announced, in the summer of 2015, that it had partnered with TNT to produce a TV series adaptation helmed by
Cary Fukunaga, Emmy-winning director of
True Detective. Carr, tentatively hired on (pending his approval of the final scripts produced) as a consulting producer, commented, "After twenty years of tough struggle and countless failed attempts, I'm delighted that Paramount Television, Anonymous Content and TNT have decided to join forces and bring 'The Alienist' to life in what, based on the material I've read, has the potential to be a faithful and exciting TV series."
Hossein Amini,
Gina Gionfriddo,
E. Max Frye and
John Sayles also joined the Paramount Television and Anonymous Content project as writers. Carr consistently kept up his nonfiction writing, on terrorism, especially. In response to the continued threats from ISIS near the end of 2015 and early in 2016, for example, Carr published a quartet of essays embodying once again his roots as a noted military scholar. The first article, published in the
Los Angeles Times, was "If France Wants to Succeed against Islamic State, it should Study the U. S. Invasion of Afghanistan". That was followed by "Let Europe Lead the War in Syria: History Counsels Caution for American Troops", published in the
New York Daily News. Next,
Vanity Fair published, "The Frantic Media Response to San Bernardino is Making Us Less Safe;" and most recently, the
Daily News published another essay of Carr's called, "Strangling Isis, Slowly but Surely" The last warned what Carr saw as an American public that has never fully recovered psychologically from the attacks of 9/11 and that the Global War on Terrorism will never have "a Hiroshima moment", and should not attempt one; instead, victory will only be gained patiently and over a span of decades.
Other work While Carr's early years at home were fraught with chaos and abuse, author
James Chace, a childhood friend, stated the house was also "full of learning ... The thing is, most people tend to be narrow. But all the Carrs know music incredibly well, history, literature—they're extraordinarily remarkable." In the 1980s Carr pursued his career as a scholar and journalist; he spent his nights working in the theater directing both repertory works as well as productions of his own plays. Additionally, he played guitar in a band called Hell and High Water. == Personal life and death ==