Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I have in the past read and thoroughly enjoyed pieces by Malcolm Gladwell in the New Yorker, I have listened to and enjoyed his podcasts and I pre-ordered this book with great anticipation thinking that I would learn a different side to a subject I have read much about. I have never been so disappointed in the purchase of a book. This book centers on the Bomber Mafia, a group of aviators who developed a theory, widely shared, that war could be conducted by way of air combat with little need for the widespread bloody trench warfare and death of emblematic of WW I. To the extent that there can be hope for a civilized war, these folks had it. And it was shared by all of the allies prior to and at the outset of WWII. Civillians should not and would not be warred upon unless they were actually combatants or working in war related industries. Wars would be brief as the winner would be the one to first stop the enemy's capacity to make war by eliminating a needed resource. The British tried it, so did the Americans and the conclusion drawn by the war's leaders was that it did not work. The shift was made from bombing the producers of resources to bombing the populations of the countries themselves. This story has been told very well in a number of books and documentaries. Bombing Germany a documentary shown frequently on PBS comes to mind. Most of the many books on the Eight Airforce also do. Most recently, Twilight of the Gods by Ian Tolland did a masterful job in recounting the same events at the center of this book. Gladwell's effort looks and reads like a paper typed at the last minute by a highschool student . The book is slim, the type looks like it was set for someone with impaired vision. Large numbers of long quotes from very few sources predominate. Professor Tami Biddle is cited 8 times in the index and most of those represent paragraphs in a book which is 206 pages long. I honestly think she should be listed as co-author. Last but not least, Gladwell comes to a simplistic conclusion about a complex subject still argued about today. Do not buy this book.