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A review by lajacquerie
The Bomber Mafia: A Dream, a Temptation, and the Longest Night of the Second World War by Malcolm Gladwell
4.0
For books that I'm enjoying, I'll often flip to the "back area" when I'm a third or so through it, just to take a look at the various footnotes for chapters I've read, maybe read through the Acknowledgements, see if there are Notes on the book. I'm glad I did in this case: Gladwell mentions that this was a podcast first, and then a book. I'd been thinking to myself that the book had felt far more conversational than any of his earlier work (which is all accessible, but written in a different tone/at a slightly different level) and was on the fence about whether I liked it. But as a podcast-turned-book, it makes perfect sense.
This slim volume tells the story of, well, bombing philosophies in the US Air Force. It touches on the early days of the Air Force; WWI and WWII; the development of napalm; and gives a riveting account of how both military flying and bombing developed in the span of a few scant decades. More importantly, it talks about some of the dreamers who helped make those plans a reality, and looks at what happens when a dreamer's ideas run afoul of reality. In this case, those ideas had a major impact on how the United States waged war, and as a result, on the world.
This slim volume tells the story of, well, bombing philosophies in the US Air Force. It touches on the early days of the Air Force; WWI and WWII; the development of napalm; and gives a riveting account of how both military flying and bombing developed in the span of a few scant decades. More importantly, it talks about some of the dreamers who helped make those plans a reality, and looks at what happens when a dreamer's ideas run afoul of reality. In this case, those ideas had a major impact on how the United States waged war, and as a result, on the world.