The American Way of Bombing

This volume brings together prominent military historians, practitioners, civilian and military legal experts, political scientists, philosophers, and anthropologists to explore the evolution of ethical and legal norms governing air warfare.

Matthew Evangelista is President White Professor of History and Political Science at Cornell University. He is the author of several books, including Unarmed Forces, also from Cornell, and Gender, Nationalism, and War. Henry Shue is Senior Research Fellow, Centre for International Studies, Department of Politics and International Relations and Emeritus Research Fellow, Merton College, at the University of Oxford. He is the author of Climate Justice: Vulnerability and Protection and Basic Rights: Subsistence, Affluence, and U.S. Foreign Policy.

The book is well written. The author provides abundant research notes, cites appropriate legal frameworks, and indicates where the United States stands with respect to each of them.... I highly recommend this book for military officers. It provides discussion of the appropriate legal and moral issues, and it makes the reader consider the second- and third-order effects created by some of our unique weapon systems and how those effects will likely impact our ability to employ such weapons in the future.

Bruno Tertrais:

One of the virtues ofThe American Way of Bombingis to remind us of the non-linear way in which airpower has evolved, and of the frequent disconnect between stated intentions and actual practice.

Mark J. Conversino:

The American Way of Bombing: Changing Ethical and Legal Norms, From Flying Fortresses to Drones, edited by Matthew Evangelista and Henry Shue, brings together an array of historians, practitioners, and legal experts from both the military and civilian worlds. Overall, the volume is balanced and the authors engage with logic and consistency. This collection is a vital resource for military professionals, policymakers, and scholars alike. Unfortunately, the challenges of norm-setting in aerial warfare chronicled here are far from over and likely to become even more contentious in light of ongoing military and counterterrorist operations across the globe and in the face of rapid technological change.

David Whetham, King's College London, editor of Ethics, Law, and Military Operations:

This ambitious volume explores the evolution of tactics, tools, and, most important, attitudes toward aerial bombardment and its effects over the last century from the perspective of the country that has done most to shape these developments—the United States. The result is an impressive multidisciplinary collection that makes a genuinely useful contribution to debates about understanding, creating, and changing norms in warfare.