Bombers and the Bombed

$19.99

A master historian’s blistering new account of the advent of air power, the creation of total war, and the staggering failures of the Allied bombing offensives in the Second World War.
Between 1939 and 1945 hundreds of European cities and hundred more townships and villages were subjected to aerial bombing. During the course of the conflict, a staggering estimate of around 600,000 European civilians were killed by bomb attack. Sixty percent of Germany’s urban areas were obliterated. Deployment of strategic bombing disappeared in Europe after 1945, but the notion that the home front could and would be attacked has lingered, fundamentally defining modern warfare.

Richard Overy, author of the classic WWII history, Why the Allies Won, revisits the large-scale strategic campaigns Britain and the United States conducted against Germany and German-occupied Europe in 1940-1945 and against Italy in 1942-1945. He recasts this familiar narrative by addressing both the sophisticated social history as well as the conventional military reality. The Bombers and the Bombed surveys the view from above and below: what the bombing campaigns were designed to achieve, and what impact they had in reality on the populations that were bombed.

By revisiting British and American archives, the private papers of individuals and institutions in effected areas, and tapping into never-before-opened records kept in the bombed cities, Overy assesses anew the political imperatives, the technology, and the ethical ambiguities that made bombing operations possible. His narrative weaves in the experiences of individuals who joined aircrews only to fight the elements and the enemy at great physical and psychological cost and the communities below them who became the victims of a technology that was never accurate enough. Analyzing the civil defense performance in France, Italy, the Low Countries, and Germany, he explores, too, the deeper factors affecting military success and failure: industrial strength, evacuation planning, the quality of leadership, and population morale.

Rooted in full economic data, informed by bomber command strategy, and enrichened by Overy’s profound insights into the moral dimensions of bombing, The Bombers and the Bombed brings a unique interpretation to the twentieth century’s greatest story.

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Description

A master historian’s blistering new account of the advent of air power, the creation of total war, and the staggering failures of the Allied bombing offensives in the Second World War.
Between 1939 and 1945 hundreds of European cities and hundred more townships and villages were subjected to aerial bombing. During the course of the conflict, a staggering estimate of around 600,000 European civilians were killed by bomb attack. Sixty percent of Germany’s urban areas were obliterated. Deployment of strategic bombing disappeared in Europe after 1945, but the notion that the home front could and would be attacked has lingered, fundamentally defining modern warfare.

Richard Overy, author of the classic WWII history, Why the Allies Won, revisits the large-scale strategic campaigns Britain and the United States conducted against Germany and German-occupied Europe in 1940-1945 and against Italy in 1942-1945. He recasts this familiar narrative by addressing both the sophisticated social history as well as the conventional military reality. The Bombers and the Bombed surveys the view from above and below: what the bombing campaigns were designed to achieve, and what impact they had in reality on the populations that were bombed.

By revisiting British and American archives, the private papers of individuals and institutions in effected areas, and tapping into never-before-opened records kept in the bombed cities, Overy assesses anew the political imperatives, the technology, and the ethical ambiguities that made bombing operations possible. His narrative weaves in the experiences of individuals who joined aircrews only to fight the elements and the enemy at great physical and psychological cost and the communities below them who became the victims of a technology that was never accurate enough. Analyzing the civil defense performance in France, Italy, the Low Countries, and Germany, he explores, too, the deeper factors affecting military success and failure: industrial strength, evacuation planning, the quality of leadership, and population morale.

Rooted in full economic data, informed by bomber command strategy, and enrichened by Overy’s profound insights into the moral dimensions of bombing, The Bombers and the Bombed brings a unique interpretation to the twentieth century’s greatest story.

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