Quote:
fnqvmuch wrote:
and now this;
http://lareviewofbooks.org/review/hiros ... militarism
(imho Paul Ham - well, at least his Kokoda - is excellent, btw)
Thanks for that!
Interesting review, some good content.
But. He falls to the same issues he accuses Ham of in that he skips the Fascist German bombing of Rotterdam and London in 1940, in his case to get his knife quicker into Harris et al, and avoid any 'who started it' argument. You can't mention the theory by Mitchell and Douhet and skip to Harris and LeMay without the actual attacks on Guernica, Chinese cities (by the Japanese) Rotterdam, London, Coventry etc. And accusing Harris of deploying a 'fascist theory of warfare' is using an emotive term - either unwise (at best) or as a cheap shot hot button at worst. Harris was operating in a democracy, and should/could have been sacked.
His good points, over the reality of the effect of the bombs on the peace processes, and the appalling emasculation of the independence of the Smithsonian with the Enola Gay debacle is utterly compromised by towering bias on other areas, encouraging the skeptical reader to chuck it all out, or where I am which is to wonder if he's been selective biased here, what about the rest?
Franklin also fails the simple test of being seen to use emotive adjectives to direct sympathy rather than laying out the argument (pro and contra) coldly and let the evidence speak.
Good thinking stuff, but won't play on peer review.
Regards,
Agree with JDK, I read the Franklin review of the Ham book, and the two seem be in the same lot that the war was already won and the bombing of civilians was unjustified. While undoubtedly horriffic most of the other accounts I have read of the final months of the war conclude that the only way to destroy Japan's abilty to wage war made it neccessary to target the factories and the the pool. Guess where they lived?
I find the topic very interesting, but think I will skip this book.
I also think the major conclusion that in post war “Everyone involved expected, indeed hoped, to use the bomb" is an overstretch. Yes there were a few folks that advocated their use, but as none were used it must be that cooler heads prevalied- obviusly not "everyone"
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