Vai al contenuto principale della pagina

Rhetoric and reality in air warfare : the evolution of British and American ideas about strategic bombing, 1914-1945 / / Tami Davis Biddle



(Visualizza in formato marc)    (Visualizza in BIBFRAME)

Autore: Biddle Tami Davis <1959-> Visualizza persona
Titolo: Rhetoric and reality in air warfare : the evolution of British and American ideas about strategic bombing, 1914-1945 / / Tami Davis Biddle Visualizza cluster
Pubblicazione: Princeton, NJ ; ; Woodstock, : Princeton University Press, c2004
Edizione: Core Textbook
Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (416 p.)
Disciplina: 358.4/2
Soggetto topico: Air power - Great Britain - History
Air power - United States - History
Bombing, Aerial - History
World War, 1914-1918 - Aerial operations, American
World War, 1914-1918 - Aerial operations, British
World War, 1939-1945 - Aerial operations, American
World War, 1939-1945 - Aerial operations, British
Note generali: Originally published: 2002.
Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Nota di contenuto: Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Chapter One. The Beginning: Strategic Bombing in the First World War -- Chapter Two. Britain in the Interwar Years -- Chapter Three. The United States in the Interwar Years -- Chapter Four. Rhetoric and Reality, 1939-1942 -- Chapter Five. The Combined Bomber Offensive, 1943-1945 -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography of Archival Sources -- Index
Sommario/riassunto: 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.
Titolo autorizzato: Rhetoric and reality in air warfare  Visualizza cluster
ISBN: 1-4008-1414-6
1-282-08725-8
9786612087257
1-4008-2497-4
Formato: Materiale a stampa
Livello bibliografico Monografia
Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
Record Nr.: 9910821284703321
Lo trovi qui: Univ. Federico II
Opac: Controlla la disponibilità qui
Serie: Princeton studies in international history and politics.