Fire and Fury

<h2>'Insightful rigorously researched and splendidly written' Donald L. Miller author of <em>Masters of the Air</em></h2> <p>During World War II Allied bombing obliterated every major German and Japanese city. Before the dropping of the atomic bombs conventional bombing had killed approximately 400000 Germans and 33000 Japanese the vast majority civilians.</p> <p>Two-thirds of Germans who died under the bombs did so in 1944 and 1945 and in the last year of the war cities with little military were obliterated. In Japan American bombers destroyed all but three major Japanese cities and the people in them after March 1945. These raids occurred in other words when Allied victory was assured and when precision bombing techniques were far more advanced than they were earlier in the war.</p> <p><em>Fire and Fury</em> asks why.</p> <p>Based on extensive archival sources interviews with bombing survivors airmen and published first-hand accounts the book looks at the bombing campaign from an avowedly human perspective - Allied German and Japanese. It recreates the experience of living through the death of a city. It presents the complex personalities of the senior airmen and explores why bombing campaigns that seem so excessive seventy-five years later seemed reasonable to many at the time. It explains why those campaigns became so murderous so late in the war. And it asks with the full benefits of time's fullness whether it was all worth it.</p> <p><strong>Perfect for fans of Max Hastings James Holland and Antony Beevor.</strong></p> <p><strong>'Outstanding'</strong> Margaret MacMillan author of <em>Paris 1919: Six Months that Changed the World</em></p> <p><strong>'Clear well-argued and grippingly told'</strong> Keith Lowe author of <em>Inferno: The Fiery Destruction of Hamburg 1943</em></p>