The Bomber Mafia
by Malcolm Gladwell · first published 2021
25% recommend42% neutral33% critical
"Malcolm Gladwell weaves together the stories of a Dutch genius and his homemade computer, a band of brothers in central Alabama, a British psychopath, and pyromaniacal chemists at Harvard to examine one of the greatest moral challenges in modern American history. Most military thinkers in the years leading up to World War II saw the airplane as an afterthought. But a small band of idealistic strategists had a different view. This 'Bomber Mafia' asked: What if precision bombing could, just by taking out critical choke points -- industrial or transportation hubs -- cripple the enemy and make
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Malcolm Gladwell published a pretty interesting history on LeMay in his new book The Bomber Mafia https://www.pushkin.fm/audiobook/bomber-mafia/
on “The General and World War III (1995)” ↗There's a good book by Malcolm Gladwell called "the bomber mafia" that's all about the airforce doctrine of indiscriminate bombing to break the population and the rebel faction within the airforce who advocated high precision bombing instead. Crippling industry instead…
on “The World War Two bomber that cost more than the atomic bomb” ↗As an aside - I just finished "The Bomber Mafia" and found it to be a very fun and interesting read. A departure from his "Pop-Smart" type books in the past. He's a very entertaining writer, and effective at telling stories - definitely lessons to…
on “How to write like Malcolm Gladwell” ↗>The only issue is that Gladwell’s account doesn’t withstand serious scrutiny. As a piece of writing, The Bomber Mafia is engaging. As a work of history, it borders on reckless. Setting aside the numerous errors of fact and interpretation, Gladwell consistently cherry-picks from the historical record. Wittingly or not,…
on “When pop history bombs: a response to Malcolm Gladwell” ↗Yes, I believe he did multiple RH podcast episodes on this. He has also released a book: "The Bomber Mafia: A Story Set in War". [1] I think the first I heard of the Tokyo firebombing during WWII was in the Errol Morris documentary: "The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara". Robert…
on “History's deadliest air raid happened in Tokyo during World War II (2020)” ↗People really should be very wary of anything Gladwell says in recent years. The fisking The Bomber Mafia got should be evidence enough.
on “B773 at Paris on Apr 5th, airplane did not respond to commands” ↗> "The only issue is that Gladwell’s account doesn’t withstand serious scrutiny. As a piece of writing, The Bomber Mafia is engaging. As a work of history, it borders on reckless." So it's classic MG? He's a good easy - often feel good - read. However, the pattern that's too clear is he rarely supplies a counter argumemt…
on “When pop history bombs: a response to Malcolm Gladwell” ↗> Gladwell’s Big Idea in The Bomber Mafia is that in the 1930s and 40s there was a deeply moral initiative by a small group of pilots at the Army Air Corp’s Tactical School in Montgomery, Alabama called the Bomber Mafia. Their secret plan was…
on “Review from Brian Castner: Malcolm Gladwell’s “The Bomber Mafia”” ↗Like most Malcom Gladwell works this is confused and sloppy. The "bomber mafia" (they didn't call themselves this) were prewar strategists who thought you could destroy an enemy's ability to fight by hitting his strategic and tactical assets with bombers. Basically they thought…
on “The World War Two bomber that cost more than the atomic bomb” ↗His "The Bomber Mafia" book seems to have gone down pretty badly with WWII historians. Possibly there is an element of professional jealousy, but mostly I think because of his cavalier attitude to the facts as generally understood…
on “How to write like Malcolm Gladwell” ↗…alone and never have to sacrifice ground troops - that thinking changed after '99 Delusions about winning wars with only air power are very close to a century old now. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bomber_Mafia ) But they seem hugely appealing to parts of human psychology - so "proved horribly wrong, yet again" doesn't do much to cure them. That said - Gen. Clark was a career Army officer, not Air Force.…
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