The Bombing War: Europe, 1939-1945 / Richard Overy

From Stalingrad to the ports of the French west coast, from Clydeside to Malta, bombing was experienced by millions of ordinary Europeans in the Second World War. Why was bombing undertaken? How did bombed societies survive? Did it actually work? 
 
In The Bombing War, Richard Overy gives the first full narrative account of the aerial devastation of Europe, showing that it changed the course of the war - but not in the way we think. The Bombing War brings together strategy, politics, technology, combat and social policy to understand the real experience of both bombing and being bombed. It strips away the many post-war myths and shows how quickly bombing came to be taken for granted on all sides, with terrible consequences.

'The best book I have read this year.' Simon Heffer, Daily Mail, Books of the Year
 
'Tremendous . . . a masterpiece of the historian's art . . . a monument to the folly and heroism of mankind.' John Charmley, The Times

'Definitive . . . shatters myths and establishes truths about the dubious morality of mass bombings on both sides.' Nigel Jones, Sunday Telegraph, Books of the Year
 
'Immensely important . . . devastating.' David Reynolds, BBC History, Books of the Year
 
'Monumental . . . a major contribution to one of the most controversial aspects of the Second World War . . . full of new detail and perspectives . . . hugely impressive.' James Holland, Literary Review