Among The Dead Cities

Among The Dead Cities book

The words are those of a man whose mother had been saved, along with thousands of others, by the efforts of a British consular official, Frank Foley. In other words, if area bombing is immoral, it is especially so when done in a situation where the enemy is clearly beaten, even if the enemy has not yet surrendered.

It will make a long curve and then come back to us! Grayling is not deaf to the argument that war justifies whatever means might be necessary to win it most effectively, but he shows that even this cannot be deployed to condone barbarism - especially when this makes it more difficult to win the war.

The book holds area bombing was not absolutely necessary, it was not proportionate, it was against the general codes of Western civilization, and it was against national laws against murder, bodily harm and destruction of property.

Such bombing began by the Nazi's in World War II when they bombed London; the practice was carried on when the Allied forces were able to bomb German cities, and the height of the practice was when US forces firebombed Japanese cities, and then used two atomic bombs on two other cities.

That he thinks the answer to this question should be in the affirmative is what will lead to a good deal of huffing and puffing. Almost immediately one senses what his answer will be -- an unequivocal "Yes" -- but he must be given full credit for reaching that conclusion only after a careful, nuanced analysis that gives full credit to the views and intentions of the bombers as well as making clear that the Allied bombing, however terrible, was "nowhere near equivalent in scale of moral atrocity to the Holocaust of European Jewry, or the death and destruction all over the world for which Nazi and Japanese aggression was collectively responsible: a total of some twenty-five million dead, according to responsible estimates," by contrast with the toll of "aboutcivilian women, children and men" exacted by Allied bombing.

Yet the case he builds against the leadership of Bomber Command as influenced by non-military considerations remains convincing.

The claim to be fighting for civilisation is one that is hard to deny to Churchill and company; a victory for Hitler would indeed have signalled a "new Dark Age". More effective precision bombing could have been undertaken; more isolation of the country by mining the waters could have been done; etc.

The ends sought -- defeat of Germany and Japan -- were in sight before the bombings of andand even the bombing of Hamburg in was out of proportion to the gains it allegedly brought to the Allied cause, if in fact there were any.

In Among the Dead Cities, A.

On this view, settlers eventually abandoned their towns and headed for other cities that were flourishing under the Arabs and the Umayyads as increasing urbanisation took its toll.

About the Author: A. There is also the question of whether or not morality has any place in a war at all. But the question remains: Was the indiscriminate bombing of civilians -- in Hamburg, in Dresden, in Tokyo, in Hiroshima, in Nagasaki -- justifiable militarily, or was it "in whole or in part morally wrong"?

Anne's College, Oxford, the multi-talented author of the best-selling The Meaning of Things, The Reason of Things and most recently The Mystery of Things, believes that philosophy should take an active, useful role in society, rather than withdrawing to the proverbial ivory tower.

Even before the Among The Dead Cities book relatively few of the Dead Cities had any archaeological excavations taking place, and unfortunately the majority of people living in close proximity to them have no understanding of their importance.

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? The murderous efficiency of the Holocaust distinguishes Nazi anti-semitic violence from previous waves, but the continuum reveals a pathology that demands to be addressed.Dec 20,  · texts All Books All Texts latest This Just In Smithsonian Libraries FEDLINK (US) Genealogy Lincoln Collection.

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Among the dead cities by A. C. atlasbowling.com: Among the Dead Cities: Was the Allied Bombing of Civilians in WWII a Necessity or a Crime? (review) Binoy Kampmark The Journal of Military History, Volume 71, Number 1, Januarypp.

Jun 19,  · 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?/5().

Mar 18,  · Among the Dead Cities by AC Grayling In a book that makes the horror strikingly fresh, and is generous in its optimism about the resilience of individual morality, only Author: Alex Butterworth. Apr 24,  · 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?

Mar 20,  · "Among the Dead Cities" is a meticulous examination of RAF area-bombing of German cities in World War II. The author is a philosopher, but most of his book is history, retelling the story of the air campaign against atlasbowling.com by: