The Bomber Mafia

A very interesting read. I always like the way Malcolm Gladwell tells stories, and while the subjects of the book, Haywood Hansell and Curtis LeMay are interesting characters I couldn't help but feel there was something missing. Their stories seemed very surface level, like underneath there was something more complex but we couldn't quite get there. The fire bombing of Japan with napalm was very unsettling, as it should be, and the quote from the Japanese historian thanking the Americans for that and the nukes was very cringy. Yes it worked to enhance LeMay's idea of all war is horrendous so why not have a short horrendous war instead of a long horrendous war, but still it just felt like a cherry picked quote to further idolize these men of war.

I learned some new things about WWII and about geopolitical history, so that's good, but overall the book felt too “worship-y”.