A groundbreaking historical analysis of indiscriminate bombing, from the 1920s to the present war in Iraq.
""You press a button and death flies down. One second, the bomb is hanging harmlessly in your racks, completely under your control. The next it is hurtling down through the air and nothing in your power can revoke what you have done.""--Charles Lindbergh
With contributions from scholars from Japan, the United States, and Europe, "Bombing Civilians" examines a crucial question: why did military planning in the early twentieth century shift its focus from bombing military targets to bombing civilians?
From the British bombing of Iraq in the early 1920s to the most recent conflicts in Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Lebanon, "Bombing Civilians" analyzes in detail the history of indiscriminate bombing, examining the fundamental questions of how this theory justifying mass killing originated and why it was employed as a compelling military strategy for decades, both before and since the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The book includes major new arguments, such as Japanese historian Tsuyoshi Hasegawa's bold claim that it was the Soviet invasion rather than the atomic bombs that compelled the Japanese to surrender in the Pacific War.
Combining historical and contemporary analysis, "Bombing Civilians" makes an important argument about international law and the morality of war.
With contributions from:, Tony Coady, Helen Durham, Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, Tetsuo Maeda, Tim McCormack, Robert Moeller, Mark Selden, Ron Schafer, Michael Sherry.