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Rhetoric and Reality in Air Warfare: The Evolution of British and American Ideas about Strategic Bombing, 1914-1945 (Princeton Studies in International History and Politics) Paperback – September 19, 2004

4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars 21 ratings

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A major revision of our understanding of long-range bombing, this book examines how Anglo-American ideas about "strategic" bombing were formed and implemented. It argues that ideas about bombing civilian targets rested on--and gained validity from--widespread but substantially erroneous assumptions about the nature of modern industrial societies and their vulnerability to aerial bombardment. These assumptions were derived from the social and political context of the day and were maintained largely through cognitive error and bias. Tami Davis Biddle explains how air theorists, and those influenced by them, came to believe that strategic bombing would be an especially effective coercive tool and how they responded when their assumptions were challenged.


Biddle analyzes how a particular interpretation of the World War I experience, together with airmen's organizational interests, shaped interwar debates about strategic bombing and preserved conceptions of its potentially revolutionary character. This flawed interpretation as well as a failure to anticipate implementation problems were revealed as World War II commenced. By then, the British and Americans had invested heavily in strategic bombing. They saw little choice but to try to solve the problems in real time and make long-range bombing as effective as possible.


Combining narrative with analysis, this book presents the first-ever comparative history of British and American strategic bombing from its origins through 1945. In examining the ideas and rhetoric on which strategic bombing depended, it offers critical insights into the validity and robustness of those ideas--not only as they applied to World War II but as they apply to contemporary warfare.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2002"

"Well written, full of nuance and detail, and solidly researched. Biddle has done a thorough job of cutting through the thicket of contradictions and fantasies that surround the strategic bombing debate from 1914 to 1945."
---Dominick A. Pisano, Military History

"There are books about military ideas and books about military practice. This work by a talented young historian integrates the two forms. In addition to a deft pen and an eye for wry anecdote, Biddle possesses an instinct for the ways in which ideas about new forms of warfare germinate, spread, and are adopted in the absence of good data. The importance of this book therefore not only stems from what it tells the reader about how the two great air powers of the first half of the twentieth century thought about this new instrument of war. It also offers cautionary lessons in an age of radical military change. Sleek and dazzling new technology is one thing; sensible doctrine for its use in war is another." ―
Foreign Affairs

"This is one of the most cogent, in-depth analyses of an important international historical controversy. Biddle's insight into the persistence of cognitive structures and processes serves as a model for future historical inquiry." ―
Choice

"Tami Davis Biddle . . . has set air power into its widest historical contexts yet and, while many of her arguments are not entirely new, has advanced the field considerably with a well-researched and carefully thought-out book."
---Michael S. Neiberg, American Historical Review

"An extremely well-crafted history. . . . [It] can now be recommended as the best treatment of its subject matter in a single volume."
---John Gooch, International History Review

"By synthesizing so many complex issues, Biddle offers a landmark piece of scholarship that should appeal to both experts and history enthusiasts through its balance, lucidity, and clarity."
---Guillaume de Syon, Air Power History

"Anyone interested in understanding the United States Air Force's bombing operations in Iraq, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan over the past decade should begin by reading this book. Today's aircraft and weapons differ dramatically from those used over the western front in World War I, but--as Tami Davis Biddle points out--ideas about strategic bombing from that era have remained remarkably resilient. . . . Biddle's work should be read by anyone interested in understanding the shaping of ideas behind the use of military force and how these ideas ultimately affect political decisions."
---Thomas E. Griffith, Jr., American Diplomacy

Review

"Rhetoric and Reality in Air Warfare is very well written and exhaustively researched, blending primary and secondary sources in a way that will satisfy both professional historians and those who read history for pleasure. In the wake of debates about the bombings of Vietnam and of Serbia, its subject remains topical. Participants in such debates will find this an important book, as will political scientists, strategic analysts, and policymakers."―George Quester, University of Maryland

"This will be the best overall treatment of Anglo-American bombing policy that we will see for a long time. Finely written, it will have a wide readership among scholars, students, and members of the interested public."
―Robert Jervis, Columbia University

"This book is a broad overview of a very important subject. Biddle's goal is to make sense of the big picture, and this is precisely what she succeeds in doing. Her judgments are honest and fair. She has an eye for striking pieces of information, and this ultimately is what gives the book its distinctive flavor. In short, this is a very impressive and useful piece of work."
―Marc Trachtenberg, University of California, Los Angeles

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Princeton University Press (September 19, 2004)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 406 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0691120102
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0691120102
  • Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 1620L
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.25 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.75 x 9 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars 21 ratings

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Customer reviews

4.7 out of 5 stars
4.7 out of 5
21 global ratings

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4 customers mention "Research quality"4 positive0 negative

Customers find the book well-researched and well-written. They also appreciate the excellent coverage of this historically important topic.

"Excellent book. Scholastically researched and well presented." Read more

"An excellent, well-researched and well-written book...." Read more

"Research:good very well researched and well presented book." Read more

"This appears to be a meticulously researched book that has been carefully compiled. Yet is this enough to produce a really good history?..." Read more

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Top reviews from the United States

Reviewed in the United States on March 7, 2024
Excellent book. Scholastically researched and well presented.
Reviewed in the United States on March 13, 2020
I learned that strategic bombing basically won WW 2. The truth turns out quite differently. This excellent book convinced me that even heroic effort struggles to fulfillment against bureaucratic resistance. Myth and legend grew in the administrative system in the UK and US during the inter-war period. New minds were indoctrinated and almost all resist the influence of facts. Even after the war, popular history reflected the strategic bombing creation myths. It calls to mind the disturbing stories about how our existing defense establishment prepares us for war. Aircraft carriers, anyone?
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Reviewed in the United States on November 22, 2019
This is an excellent analysis of the differences between airpower claims and airpower accomplishments against Germany in WW II. The gulf between the two was huge, in both the USAAF and the RAF Bomber Command. The book describes the history of the American and British claimants of strategic bombing from late 1918, through the 1920s and 1930s, into the early war years. It was only starting in 1944 that they really started doing anything significant regarding the destruction of German military industry.

I have always been amazed at the obstinance of those who are so enamored with strategic bombing. Such bombing by itself has never won a war, at any time or any place. In 1942, the RAF' own analyses showed that in seven of the 12 raids over Essen, fewer than 5% of the aircraft got within 5 miles of the target (which was the center of downtown Essen). In the attacks on Essen in March and April of 1942, 90% of the bombs fell within 5 to 100 miles of the target, meaning that only 10% fell within 5 miles of the target.

For another really good book on this subject, I recommend "The Bombers and the Bombed" by Overy (2014). It discusses the inaccuracy of RAF bombing extensively.
2 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on June 11, 2017
An excellent, well-researched and well-written book. I reviewed it as part of my research on another book and found her conclusions well-supported with other historical documents. I highly recommend.
Reviewed in the United States on January 26, 2020
Research:
good very well researched and well presented book.
Reviewed in the United States on September 23, 2005
The title explains the book. It is intended as a detailed investigation of the evolution of both British and American ideas on strategic bombing in the first half of the twentieth century. It succeeds admirably.

It is, in fact, an extremely thoughtful and perceptive analysis and one which any modern warrior struggling with buzz-words such as "transformational warfare", "network centric", or "Revolution in Military Affairs", could and should read with profit. All these jargon-laden phrases come down in the end to how the military marries new technologies and the opportunites they present, with the conceptual framework necessary to utilise them properly. This book is concerned with how US and British airmen addressed these conceptual difficulties following the inception of military air power in the First World War.

The author shows very clearly how rhetoric too often exceeded reality, and how doctrine was too often allowed to degenerate into dogma. The causes are many and varied, and in the British case at least had nothing to do with Army control, since the RAF had been independent since 1 April 1918. The book makes clear the unwisdom of simply debating original and revolutionary concepts, whilst ignoring the need to develop essential training programmes and the equipment to support them. The RAF in the inter-war years could "talk the talk", but in 1939 it could not "walk the walk". Specifically it had neglected the primary art of navigation. The USAAF fared little better when its rhetoric was exposed to the fires of war. Both Air Forces eventually modified both their rhetoric and, as the author makes clear, once the neglected fundamentals were addressed, air power proved of decisive importance in winning the war.

In part this story has been told before, but seldom with such impressive depth of research and scholarship. Anyone who believes they know the story of strategic air power would be well advised to read this book to discover how much they have missed. Biddle reveals, for example, the extent to which very early US official writings on strategtic air power drew, verbatim at times, on British documents provided to the Americans in the First World War.

In sum this is an excellent book, combining elegant prose and thoughtful analysis with impressive research. It should be compulsory reading for Air Force officers and all those concerned with military procurement programmes.
32 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on September 20, 2013
Biddle argues that British and American airpower pioneers vastly oversold the potential of strategic bombing, culminating in the disastrous initial experience of the Combined Bomber Offensive in World War II. Cognitive and organizational biases contributed to this gap between rhetoric and reality. These biases were so strong that strategic bombing advocates ignored or downplayed clear evidence, and clung to their theories long past the point of rationality. This is a good book, meticulously researched, but is determined to prove its central hypothesis. It should be read in conjunction with other books before making up one's mind about the efficacy of strategic bombing in World War II. Tooze's "Wages of Destruction", for example, suggests that even the cruder forms of area bombing may have taken a larger toll on the German war economy than many historians acknowledge.
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Top reviews from other countries

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K. Campbell
5.0 out of 5 stars A most useful book.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 25, 2017
I am writing a historical military biography, and this is a most useful book.
Thomas Fontanari
4.0 out of 5 stars Grundsolide
Reviewed in Germany on October 19, 2012
Eine grundsolide, ausführlichst recherchierte Arbeit. Die aus dem Ersten Weltkrieg gezogenen (falschen) Schlüsse sowie deren Verfestigung aus institutionellen sowie kognitiven Gründen werden minutiös dokumentiert. Frau Davis-Biddle hat sichtlich ungemein viel Aufwand in das Werk gesteckt, das trotz der Fülle an Information leicht lesbar geblieben ist.

Wenn ich unbedingt Schattenseiten finden muss, dann ist es das Fehlen definitiver Schlüsse zur (Kosten)Effizienz des Strategic Bombing und zu möglichen Alternativen.

Der Verlag hat sich mit dem Satz wenig angetan und er enthält einige Fehler (z. B. einzelne nicht hochgestellte Fußnotenverweise im Text, Probleme bei den Kapitelüberschriften). Trotzdem ist der Preis für ein E-Book mit aktuell 21,63 Euro doch einigermaßen hoch. Deshalb ein Stern Abzug ohne Verschulden der Autorin.