{"product_id":"the-bomber-mafia-a-dream-a-temptation-and-the-longest-night-of-the-second-world-war-1","title":"The Bomber Mafia: A Dream, a Temptation, and the Longest Night of the Second World War","description":"\u003cp\u003eDive into this \"truly compelling\" (Good Morning America) New York Times bestseller that explores how technology and best intentions collide in the heat of war--from the creator and host of the podcast Revisionist History.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn The Bomber Mafia, Malcolm Gladwell weaves together the stories of a Dutch genius and his homemade computer, a band of brothers in central Alabama, a British psychopath, and pyromaniacal chemists at Harvard to examine one of the greatest moral challenges in modern American history.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMost military thinkers in the years leading up to World War II saw the airplane as an afterthought. But a small band of idealistic strategists, the \"Bomber Mafia,\" asked: What if precision bombing could cripple the enemy and make war far less lethal?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn contrast, the bombing of Tokyo on the deadliest night of the war was the brainchild of General Curtis LeMay, whose brutal pragmatism and scorched-earth tactics in Japan cost thousands of civilian lives, but may have spared even more by averting a planned US invasion. In The Bomber Mafia, Gladwell asks, \"Was it worth it?\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThings might have gone differently had LeMay's predecessor, General Haywood Hansell, remained in charge. Hansell believed in precision bombing, but when he and Curtis LeMay squared off for a leadership handover in the jungles of Guam, LeMay emerged victorious, leading to the darkest night of World War II. The Bomber Mafia is a riveting tale of persistence, innovation, and the incalculable wages of war.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Volume Bookshop \u0026 Studio, LLC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43170434187300,"sku":"9780316296618","price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0743\/8657\/1300\/files\/9780316296618.jpg?v=1768676928","url":"https:\/\/volumebookshop.com\/products\/the-bomber-mafia-a-dream-a-temptation-and-the-longest-night-of-the-second-world-war-1","provider":"Volume Bookshop \u0026 Studio, LLC","version":"1.0","type":"link"}