The Bancroft Prize-winning history of American strategic bombing

"Sherry has given us more than just a major contribution to the literature about air power and World War Two. His real subject is nothing less than the destructiveness of our modern age."—John W. Dower, author of War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War

This book offers an in-depth history of American strategic bombing. With impressive sweep and vigor, Michael S. Sherry explores the growing appear of air power in America before World War II, the ideas, techniques, personalities, and organizations that guided air attacks during the war, and the devastating effects of American and British "conventional" bombing. He also traces the origins of the dangerous illusion that the bombing of cities would be so horrific that nations would not dare let it occur—an illusion that has sanctioned the growth of nuclear arsenals. His book is a major contribution to American military, intellectual, and political history.