War without end.

Chicago became the tale of two speeches recently when George W. Bush and James Carroll spoke about war on the same day.

The president, having the worst of times, trotted out yet one more "turning point in the struggle between freedom and terror" to demonstrate how the war in Iraq is, by his own analysis, morphing into the best of times.

James Carroll took another view as he read from his new book, The House of War: The Pentagon and the Disastrous Rise of American Power (Houghton Mifflin). Carroll's new work of nonfiction offers a thick description and theological reflection of the continual American arms buildup, seeded by Franklin Roosevelt, fertilized by every administration since, and in full flower this very moment. Despite the rhetoric and intentions of several presidents from both political parties who wished to reverse this dangerous reality, none succeeded.

Why? The answer is embedded in the seemingly eternal engine that runs the war machine named the Pentagon, the famed five-sided building constructed during World War II. Intended to be only a temporary facility for the administration of that war, the building has become a permanent fixture. So, too, has been the constant and consistent build-up of American arms since the early 1940s.

This biography of the Pentagon is intimately related to James Carroll's autobiography. As a kid he played in these corridors of power, sliding down ramps in his stocking feet, while his father worked late into the night and on weekends at the Pentagon. When Carroll grew into adulthood, he became active in Vietnam War protests, which distanced his father from him. Carroll has reflected on his own life events both in his 1991 novel, Memorial Bridge (Ivy), and his 1996 National Book Award-winning memoir, An American Requiem (Mariner).

In House of War, Carroll finds most disturbing our country's adoption of an ethic that sanctions the development and use of weapons that make no distinction between military and civilian targets. The obvious example, of course, is the atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but, as he points out, the earlier saturation bombings of Hamburg, Kyoto, Tokyo, and Dresden had already killed untold numbers of civilians.

House of War documents and challenges the 60-plus years of this country's nuclear weapons buildup. Carroll readily admits the momentum of the Pentagon is more powerful than the rushing waters of Niagara. Yet he believes this tide can and must turn. The civil rights movement, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Polish Solidarity movement, and People Power in the Philippines are but a few examples of citizens changing the course of history.

Twenty-two years ago James Carroll's best-selling novel Prince of Peace made its debut; this year his nonfiction book House of War was published. No one more than the author wishes that his latest book be fiction and his earlier book nonfiction.

But it is not so. Replacing the house of war with the Prince of Peace depends on all of us. Start by organizing a book discussion group around House of War in your parish, neighborhood, or living room.

It will be a far, far better thing we do than we have ever done.

PETER GILMOUR ([e-mail]) teaches at the Institute of Pastoral Studies of Loyola University Chicago.