This prizewinning book is the first in-depth history of American strategic bombing. Michael S. Sherry explores the growing appeal of air power in America before World War II, the ideas, techniques, personalities, and organizations that guided air attacks during the war, and the devastating effects of American and British "conventional" bombing. He also traces the origins of the dangerous illusion that the bombing of cities would be so horrific that nations would not dare let it occur-an illusion that has sanctioned the growth of nuclear arsenals. "A brilliant, biting and yet not ungenerous study of a momentous idea, the idea of war from the air."-Philip Morrison, Scientific American "Sherry's book demands to be read."-D. J. R. Bruckner, New York Times Book Review "A big, heroic and chilling story, and Michael Sherry tells it with style, controlled passion, and analytical sophistication. This book is the best kind of strategic history."-Ken Booth, International Affairs "Both informative and provocative."-John Gooch, Times Higher Education Supplement "Sherry describes the course of the war in brilliant detail as a tug of war between what it was felt planes should do and what, at any moment, they could do."-Garry Wills, New York Review of Books "This riveting study has a distinct significance in today's world."-Library Journal