Among the Dead Cities: Is the Targeting of Civilians in War Ever Justified?

by A. C. Grayling

Overview

Is it ever right to target civilians in a time of war? Or do the ends sometimes justify the means? The twentieth century - the age of 'total war' - marked the first time that civilian populations came to be seen as legitimate military targets. At this policy's most terrible extreme came the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki but it is an issue that remains relevant today with the needs of the 'War on Terror' used to justify the use of drone strikes. In Among the Dead Cities, A.C. Grayling explores these moral issues in all their complexity with a detailed examination of the Allied bombing of German cities during World War 2. Considering the cases for and against the area bombing and the experiences of the bombed and the bombers, Grayling asks: was the targeting of civilians in Germany a crime? Now available in the Bloomsbury Revelations series, the book includes a new afterword by the author considering the issues in light of later conflicts up to the present day.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781472526038
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	06/19/2014
Series:	Bloomsbury Revelations
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	376
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

A.C. Grayling is Master of the New College of the Humanities, UK. He has written and edited numerous works of philosophy and is the author of biographies of Descartes and William Hazlitt.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Picture Credits Maps Preface 1. Introduction: Was It A Crime 2. The Bomber War 3. The Experience of the Bombed 4. The Mind of the Bomber 5. Voices of Conscience 6. The Case Against the Bombing 7. The Defence of Area Bombing 8. Judgement Postscript Appendix Afterword to the Bloomsbury Revelations Edition Notes Bibliography Index