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

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Britain and the USA carried out a massive bombing offensive against the cities of Germany and Japan in the course of the Second World War, which ended with the destruction of Hamburg, Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Was the bombing of civilian targets justified by the necessities of war Or was it, in fact, a crime against humanity How should we, the descendants of the Allies who won the victory in that war, reply to the moral challenge of the descendants of those whose cities were targeted A.C. Grayling looks at the stands people took, both for and against, and crucially asks what are the lessons that we can learn for today about how people should behave in a world of tension and moral confusion, of terrorism and fragile democracies. Among the Dead Cities is both a lucid and revealing work of modern history and an investigation of conscience into one of the last remaining controversies of that time.

Reviews

Its obvious contemporary relevance gives this book a timeliness to add to the timeless nature of the debate to which it contributes ... Books like this should be compulsory reading for all senior politicians'
Extraordinary ... deserves to be read, not only by those interested in the history of the Second World War, but also by those who continue to be interested in the ethical questions of warfare, in a world where British governments and their allies still try to justify the bombing of civilian targets'
Grayling recognises all too well that area bombing must be put firmly in the context of the wider war and the blurring (indeed the obliteration) of moral lines it caused ... A challenging, thought-provoking book that forces us to confront some uncomfortable home truths'
A provocative and readable study ... that is the purpose of his book, to provoke our leaders, and those on whose behalf they purport to act, to ask how to wage a war by methods short of barbarism'

Author Bio

A.C. Grayling is one of Britain's leading intellectuals. Professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck College, University of London, and a supernumerary fellow of St. Anne's College, Oxford, he is the multi-talented author of the best-selling The Meaning of Things, The Reason of Things and The Mystery of Things. He is a regular contributor to The Times, the Financial Times, Observer, Independent on Sunday, Economist, Literary Review, New Statesman and Prospect, and a frequent and popular contributor to radio and television, including CNN, Newsnight, the Today programme, In Our Time and Start the Week. He was a Man Booker judge in 2003, is a Fellow of the World Economic Forum and an advisor on many committees ranging from Drug Testing at Work to human rights groups.