Bombing the City (Studies in the Social and Cultural History of Modern Warfare)
Cambridge University Press, 10/18/2018
EAN 9781108446525, ISBN10: 1108446523
Paperback, 272 pages, 22.8 x 15.3 x 1.4 cm
Language: English
World War II is enshrined in our collective memory as the good war - a victory of good over evil. However, the bombing war has always troubled this narrative as total war transformed civilians into legitimate targets and raised unsettling questions such as whether it was possible for Allies and Axis alike to be victims of aggression. In Bombing the City, an unprecedented comparative history of how ordinary Britons and Japanese experienced bombing, Aaron William Moore offers a major new contribution to these debates. Utilising hundreds of diaries, letters, and memoirs, he recovers the voices of ordinary people on both sides - from builders, doctors and factory-workers to housewives, students and policemen - and reveals the shared experiences shaped by gender, class, race, and age. He reveals how it was that the British and Japanese public continued to support bombing elsewhere even as they experienced firsthand its terrible impact at home.
List of figures
Acknowledgements
Note to the reader
Featured diarists
Introduction
attacking the people
democracy, populism, and modern war
1. Give unto Moloch
family and nation in WWII
2. The muses of war
terror, anger, and faith
3. Romancing stone
human sacrifice and system collapse in the city
4. Defending our way of life
gender, class, age, and other oppressions
Conclusion
victory for the people
pacifism and the ashes of the post-war era
Notes
Bibliography
Index.