How Effective is Strategic Bombing? Lessons Learned from World War II to Kosovo

Gentile, Gian P.

ISBN 10: 081473135X / ISBN 13: 9780814731352

Published by New York University Press, New York, 2000

About this Item

New York & London: New York University Press, (2000). First Edition, First Printing. Large 8vo. ix,273pp, Index, Bibliography. Hardcover. Fine condition in fine dj. Fresh examination of a study compiled after World War II, consisting of over 330 separate reports and annexes. ISBN 08173135X; Large 8vo 9" - 10" tall; 273 pages.

Seller Inventory # 16382

Bibliographic Details

• Title: How Effective is Strategic Bombing? Lessons Learned from World War II to Kosovo
• Publisher: New York University Press, New York
• Publication Date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 081473135X
• ISBN 13: 9780814731352
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: First Edition; First Printing.
• Condition: Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Fine

About this title

Synopsis

In the wake of World War II, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson and President Harry S. Truman established the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, to determine exactly how effectively strategic air power had been applied in the European theater and in the Pacific. The final study, consisting of over 330 separate reports and annexes, was staggering in its size and emphatic in its conclusions. As such it has for decades been used as an objective primary source and a guiding text, a veritable Bible for historians of air power.
In this aggressively revisionist volume, Gian Gentile examines afresh this influential document to reveal how it reflected to its very foundation the American conceptual approach to strategic bombing. In the process, he exposes the survey as largely tautological and thereby throwing into question many of the central tenets of American air power philosophy and strategy.
With a detailed chapter on the Gulf War and the resulting Gulf War Air Power Survey, and a concluding chapter on the lessons of the Kosovo air war, How Effective is Strategic Bombing? is the most comprehensive and important book on air power strategy in decades.

About the Author

A former Assistant Professor of History at the United States Military Academy, West Point, Gian P. Gentile is an active duty army officer and is currently a Division Operations Planner with the 24th Infantry Division at Fort Riley, Kansas. He has served in command and staff positions in armored units in Germany, Korea, and the United States. He holds a Ph.D. in history from Stanford University.