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The Rise of American Air Power: The Creation of Armageddon Paperback – September 10, 1989

by Michael S. Sherry (Author)

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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.

Print length

478 pages
Language

English
Publication date

September 10, 1989
Dimensions

9.82 x 7.08 x 0.86 inches
ISBN-10

0300044143
ISBN-13

978-0300044140
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Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

This prizewinning book is the first in-depth history of American strategic bombing. Michael explores the growing appeal of air power in America before World War ii, the ideas, techniques, personalities, ad organizations that guided air attacks during the ear and the devastating effects of American and British 'conventional' bombing.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Yale University Press; Reprint edition (September 10, 1989)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 478 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0300044143
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0300044140
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.8 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 9.82 x 7.08 x 0.86 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #743,078 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #680 in History of Technology
- #1,314 in Military Aviation History (Books)
- #13,270 in Engineering (Books)

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4.3 out of 5

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Matthew Smith

Extremely good book

Reviewed in the United States on October 19, 2007

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This book is a very comprehensive and authoritative account of the birth and the growth of the U.S. air forces. This is the best book I have read on this topic, and the work is so detailed and encompasses all aspects of the evolution of air power from the first theorists of what air warfare would entail to creation of a separate branch of the military for the Air Force to what the future may hold for this aspect of warfare.

Mr. Sherry goes into great depth writing about the philosophy behind the men who helped to create the Air Force and those who fought for it. At its beginnings it was thought (much like nuclear weapons) that this method of warfare would be so terrible, so horrific that it would force an end to all war. It was thought that an attack on a nation's capitol or major cities would cause the civilian populations to panic and flee causing economic collapse and thus quick ends to any war. Of course WWII completely eradicated this myth. Instead of a new weapon that assured no more war, air power just became a an aspect that ensures that the price of war is increased and is now paid by civilian and soldier alike.

He also chronicles the failures of combat thinking, planning and philosophy during WWII. Hundreds of thousands of people died in useless bombings that had no strategic value whatsoever and did not hasten the end of hostilities at all. The fire bombings of Japan and the Dresden bombings were examples of the needless destruction of innocent lives. Mr. Sherry details many of the fire bombings of Japan and gives the reader the Japanese (or victims) perspective of this horrible new weapon.

Mr. Sherry discusses the strategic limitations of this warfare and why it failed to bring about the surrender of the Axis powers even with the horrendous tolls it took during the war. He discusses how air power still looms as a potential disaster for all people.

This is an extremely thorough and scholarly look into all aspects of air power, and how it affects warfare and peace for every nation. It is a fascinating read and one that I felt taught me so much that I would not have gotten from any other single book. If you only read one book on air power make sure it is this one because it is the only one you will ever need.

15 people found this helpful

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Jim Kowalski

Excellent

Reviewed in the United States on June 12, 2019

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Excellent book, I definitely enjoyed it.

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Amazon Customer

Good, but there are flaws

Reviewed in the United States on August 31, 2001

The Rise of American Airpower by Michael Sherry represents the new breed of military history. This book is about the physical, organizational and technological advances which affected the United States armed forces in peace and in war. It is not a record of the battles and campaigns of World War Two. This is a cultural history which seeks to explain the rise of strategic air war. Sherry set before himself the massive task of understanding how humans could delude themselves to the point where they could seriously consider the horrors of conventional mass bombardment and later nuclear warfare as an abstract idea.
Sherry identifies three related developments which his study should address. These are the creation of the apocalyptic mentality, the creation of an apparatus for realizing that danger, and the creation of the modern nuclear dilemma. Sherry decided to limit his dealings with nuclear warfare and deal with that last issue primarily in comparison to the first two issues. What Sherry is after is an understanding of the bomber in the imagination of the American public before and during World War Two. He believes that to understand wartime developments one needs to know the story of the rise of American airpower and perception of bombers and bombing in the popular imagination. He suggests that after WWI aircraft became inextricably linked to civilian uses. Airplanes were immediately familiar in their civilian role and had practical peacetime applications. Sherry suggests that these factors resulted in the imagined use of the bomber often outpacing the practical realities of actual bombing. According to Sherry, "the warplane was created in imagination before it was invented as a practical weapon." In this way Sherry focused his study of the social and cultural history to explain the rise of American airpower.
Sherry arranged this book in a generally chronological format with ten chapters. The chapter titles almost tell the story themselves, they are "The Age of Fantasy", "The Age of Prophecy", "The Decline of Danger", "The Attractions of Intimidation", "From Intimidation to Annihilation", "The Dynamics of Escalation", " The Sociology of Air War", "The Sources of Technological Fanaticism", "The Triumphs of Technological Fanaticism", "The Persistence of Apocalyptic Fantasy". Although he occasionally deviates from a strict chronology, the primary diversion from the format is the chapter on "The Sociology of Air War". In this chapter he looks at the actors, the generals, civilian expert advocates and aircrews of the bomber forces.
In his opening chapter, "The Age of Fantasy", Sherry starts not with a direct examination of the airplane, but an examination of the popular civilian perceptions regarding technological advances in warfare during the nineteenth century. This is the base upon which his later arguments rest, and I believe that it is a solid base. Sherry notes that the airplane was "like a host of other weapons invented or imagined in the nineteenth century and celebrated for their capacity to diminish the `evils of war'." Sherry points to the writings of such well known people as Jack London and Victor Hugo as evidence of this social phenomena. In fact, as early as 1864 Hugo stated that airplanes would make armies "vanish, and with them the whole business of war, exploitation and subjugation". Others made similar claims for Tri-Nitro Tolulene (TNT), the machine-gun, and the large caliber artillery piece.
These claims and perceptions did not end with the nineteenth century, rather they accelerated prior to the First World War. Civilian theorists exaggerated the destructiveness of new weapons so that they might inflate their power to keep the peace. Sherry also draws a link between the nature of nineteenth century war and the popular perceptions. In the civilian imagination wars were short, and although bloody for a few days, relatively cheap. (The American Civil War was generally overlooked or seen as an aberration.) They took this as substantive evidence that their theories were correct. These two factors combined to lay the groundwork for consideration of air bombardment of civilian population centers. Their logic suggested that if war was inevitable, then a short war is best. The best way to have a short war is to use terrible weapons quickly and be done with the matter. With these thoughts in mind the world entered WWI.
Sherry deals only briefly with World War One, but the treatment is important. It is important not for what was learned, but for what the world did not learn from the first war involving significant numbers of aircraft. During World War One both Germany and Great Britain experimented with the first strategic bombing raids. These raids were not the result of military theories regarding civilian production and demoralization. They occurred as a series of raids then reprisals motivated by popular civilian demand for vengeance on both sides. No specific targets beyond "the enemy" were sought or targeted, hatred was the primary motive in a Europe locked in a stalemated war. The lesson that was missed was that bombing civilian population centers does not necessarily result in panic, chaos and surrender.
During the 1920's America and Europe underwent what Sherry calls "The Age of Prophecy" with regard to military aviation theory. The two most significant events of this period were the 1921 sinking of a battleship by Colonel Billy Mitchell and the 1927 solo trans-Atlantic flight by Charles Lindbergh. Sherry sees these two events as uniting to form, in the American national psyche, a positive opinion towards aircraft as expressions of individualism in the wake of mass warfare. Americans, a people that had never been bombed from the air, saw aircraft as marvelous inventions. They tied grand prophecies to the powers of these machines. Together, the effects of cultural imagination and prophecy formed in the American mind a benign image of the airplane. From that image Americans began to see the bomber in a similar light, powerful yet somehow detached from the actual horror that they could potentially inflict. Sherry claims that in this way the military theories and forces required to actually conduct a bombing campaign advanced faster than any debate on the legality or morality of doing so.

19 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on January 31, 2018

Excellent, A+++++

Extremely Disappointed

Reviewed in the United States on December 24, 2023

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The author got caught up in his ability to tie words together. The facts could have been presented in 1/3 of what was written. The book covers a very small part of the history I expected. The book is dry and boring.

Reviewed in the United States on August 27, 2014

Verified Purchase

great service and great book

Reviewed in the United States on December 28, 2019

This is an unusual book. It's not so much a narrative of the development of the bomber, as a narrative of the development of people's FEELINGS about the bomber. People felt that this was something new and frightening and weren't sure how it would be used. Many had the hope that the mere thought of aerial bombardment would end all war, because bombing would be so inhumane that no one would ever do it (hah). Then people did do it, because they vaguely thought that it would cause Germany and Japan to surrender, although as the author repeatedly points out, no one knew HOW it would bring about surrender (and in Germany at least, boots on the ground was the only way to bring about surrender). Then they just kept on bombing and bombing and bombing, because they had so many bombers, even though they accomplishing nothing except "making the rubble bounce." As the author shows, a great deal of this occurred because the Army Aid Forces felt that they were not getting as much respect as the Army and the Navy.

The author discusses the effects of aerial bombardment on human beings in a dispassionate, emotionless tone, so that it is startling (and a relief) when on page 254 the author finally calmly refers to the massive slaughter of civilians as "evil" and "sin." The overriding point of the book is that human beings will keep on using technology even when they don't know what their goals are in using it, or whether it will help them achieve those goals.

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