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patvulaj's review against another edition
4.25
I enjoy Gladwell’s ability to take historical events and spin them in a way that makes the book read like a novel at times. Very interesting book that I can still pull from when I look back at it.
twinsunplus1's review against another edition
dark
emotional
informative
fast-paced
4.25
This book is really his podcast
dorhastings's review against another edition
adventurous
informative
reflective
fast-paced
4.5
How this book ended up on my TBR: I've read and generally liked several of Malcom Gladwell's previous works. I'd heard of this book before, and I recently watched him on First We Feast's Hot Ones. He gave a great interview and thought some of the ideas about the book sounded intriguing. For one, though it's still nonfiction, it deviates from what he normally writes. This sounded like something of a passion project, and I am all about passion projects. Secondly, he wrote this book primarily as an audiobook and included oral histories, and I thought that sounded pretty neat.
I'm also going to add a disclaimer that I'm not a huge lover of WWII history. I've barely made it through WWII historical fiction (exception to this being All The Light We Cannot See; a million stars to that book), though I did enjoy reading Chester Nez's Code Talker, which did include WWII and fighting Japanese forces. I would be remiss if I didn't add that my grandfather and his brothers were in the Air Force during WWII, though they never talked about it, and I don't know if they served after WWII. It feels like Gladwell did his research, and I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. I've seen a review or two that indicates some places where Gladwell is incorrect about a person or the overall outcome of the war, but I feel as though Gladwell doesn't really consider his work to be definitive. Again, it's well-researched, and while he does go off on his own exposition, I found it overall to be enjoyable.
While the book title (and even the book itself) highlight the importance of two men (Haywood Hansell and Curtis LeMay), but the book is just as much about the development of what would come to be known as the American Air Force and its great significance in WWII and the evolution of how we fight wars (from on-the-ground to air warfare). The tension between Hansell and LeMay is introduced very early on, and we are told that this moment will be significant, before we drop back into the lead-up to this moment. The lead-up was not always of great interest to me, but when we got back to the moment, I could not stop listening to the audiobook.
Along the way, we learn about how airplanes evolved from WWI to WWII and how the American government wanted them to take a more substantive role in WWII. The quick aside to Norden's invention of the bombsight leads us to the idea of precision bombing. In this case, Hansell supports the idea of hitting important targets and limiting the effects on civilian populations. Unfortunately, weather conditions and technology that is just not yet where it needs to be makes precision bombing less effective than it could be. I actually liked hearing about the different ideas of bombings between the US and Britain, who itself was suffering from random bombings from Germany. It was interesting to hear that Londoners were generally unphased by the bombings and were steadfast in their belief that Germany would rue the day.
We then move over to Japan, where distance is a more significant problem. This is also where we have another aside to learn about the development of napalm (and this is where I started to see where we were going). We are then back to Hansell and LeMay, and this is also when Gladwell gets to the "temptation" that he mentions in the title. He constantly returns to the parable of Jesus's 40 days in the desert, with the devil tempting him all along the way. Hansell, Gladwell says, was tempted but turned down the temptation. For this, and for his lack of results, he was removed. LeMay, in contrast, took the temptation. I don't know if it's right to say that Gladwell is making the distinction between the two men as being a little simplistic. Indeed, he does have some good things to say about LeMay (especially his reverence for men that he lost in a particularly bad mission, when they were attempting to support Hansell's plan in Germany), though he clearly wishes LeMay had broadened his reverence to include the great swaths of people who died when he took up his new plan. So here we are at the moment, the night, when LeMay's forces drop thousands of napalm bombs over Tokyo, killing over 100,000 people in one night. There are additional rounds of napalm bombs, but this was the most significant. Is there morality in war? LeMay's morality said that the best way forward is to end the war as quickly as possible to minimize casualties, and the Japanese government seemed to agree by awarding LeMay its highest honor in 1964. But using napalm by burning their victims alive? And killing so, so many people? Of course, now the use of napalm is absolutely banned. But the war against Japan was also personal. And that makes me think about current wars, about Israel and Palestine, and Israel's justification for invading Gaza and killing tens of thousands of people. The theme feels current.
What brings this audiobook to life is the recordings, the music, even the interviews that Gladwell includes. I enjoyed hearing him narrate his book, though probably not half as much as he probably enjoyed reading it aloud. I can honestly forgive any issues I'd have with the Hansell-LeMay comparison for several reasons, one of which is that history is tricky. This isn't a replacement for a history book. This is Gladwell finding the trading of strategies, from Hansell to LeMay, to be interesting. Interesting enough for him to do quite a bit of research and write a short book about it. Perhaps that's why I enjoyed the book as much as I did, especially in the last hour of the book. I can't imagine getting the same experience from a non-audiobook version of the book, but I'd be interested in looking over his other resources and photos.
I'm also going to add a disclaimer that I'm not a huge lover of WWII history. I've barely made it through WWII historical fiction (exception to this being All The Light We Cannot See; a million stars to that book), though I did enjoy reading Chester Nez's Code Talker, which did include WWII and fighting Japanese forces. I would be remiss if I didn't add that my grandfather and his brothers were in the Air Force during WWII, though they never talked about it, and I don't know if they served after WWII. It feels like Gladwell did his research, and I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. I've seen a review or two that indicates some places where Gladwell is incorrect about a person or the overall outcome of the war, but I feel as though Gladwell doesn't really consider his work to be definitive. Again, it's well-researched, and while he does go off on his own exposition, I found it overall to be enjoyable.
While the book title (and even the book itself) highlight the importance of two men (Haywood Hansell and Curtis LeMay), but the book is just as much about the development of what would come to be known as the American Air Force and its great significance in WWII and the evolution of how we fight wars (from on-the-ground to air warfare). The tension between Hansell and LeMay is introduced very early on, and we are told that this moment will be significant, before we drop back into the lead-up to this moment. The lead-up was not always of great interest to me, but when we got back to the moment, I could not stop listening to the audiobook.
Along the way, we learn about how airplanes evolved from WWI to WWII and how the American government wanted them to take a more substantive role in WWII. The quick aside to Norden's invention of the bombsight leads us to the idea of precision bombing. In this case, Hansell supports the idea of hitting important targets and limiting the effects on civilian populations. Unfortunately, weather conditions and technology that is just not yet where it needs to be makes precision bombing less effective than it could be. I actually liked hearing about the different ideas of bombings between the US and Britain, who itself was suffering from random bombings from Germany. It was interesting to hear that Londoners were generally unphased by the bombings and were steadfast in their belief that Germany would rue the day.
We then move over to Japan, where distance is a more significant problem. This is also where we have another aside to learn about the development of napalm (and this is where I started to see where we were going). We are then back to Hansell and LeMay, and this is also when Gladwell gets to the "temptation" that he mentions in the title. He constantly returns to the parable of Jesus's 40 days in the desert, with the devil tempting him all along the way. Hansell, Gladwell says, was tempted but turned down the temptation. For this, and for his lack of results, he was removed. LeMay, in contrast, took the temptation. I don't know if it's right to say that Gladwell is making the distinction between the two men as being a little simplistic. Indeed, he does have some good things to say about LeMay (especially his reverence for men that he lost in a particularly bad mission, when they were attempting to support Hansell's plan in Germany), though he clearly wishes LeMay had broadened his reverence to include the great swaths of people who died when he took up his new plan. So here we are at the moment, the night, when LeMay's forces drop thousands of napalm bombs over Tokyo, killing over 100,000 people in one night. There are additional rounds of napalm bombs, but this was the most significant. Is there morality in war? LeMay's morality said that the best way forward is to end the war as quickly as possible to minimize casualties, and the Japanese government seemed to agree by awarding LeMay its highest honor in 1964. But using napalm by burning their victims alive? And killing so, so many people? Of course, now the use of napalm is absolutely banned. But the war against Japan was also personal. And that makes me think about current wars, about Israel and Palestine, and Israel's justification for invading Gaza and killing tens of thousands of people. The theme feels current.
What brings this audiobook to life is the recordings, the music, even the interviews that Gladwell includes. I enjoyed hearing him narrate his book, though probably not half as much as he probably enjoyed reading it aloud. I can honestly forgive any issues I'd have with the Hansell-LeMay comparison for several reasons, one of which is that history is tricky. This isn't a replacement for a history book. This is Gladwell finding the trading of strategies, from Hansell to LeMay, to be interesting. Interesting enough for him to do quite a bit of research and write a short book about it. Perhaps that's why I enjoyed the book as much as I did, especially in the last hour of the book. I can't imagine getting the same experience from a non-audiobook version of the book, but I'd be interested in looking over his other resources and photos.
wardawg69's review against another edition
informative
reflective
fast-paced
4.0
Well written but too short
thesauraz's review against another edition
5.0
Gladwell’s genius, for me, is in his gripping, thriller-style in recounting historical events. They’re kind of fringe, but very real, and they leave me wondering, “How have I never heard about this shit before??”