Governing from the Skies
A Global History of Aerial Bombing
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
The history of the war from the past one hundred years is a history of bombing
“Tripoli, 1 November 1911: I decided that today I would try to drop bombs from the aeroplane … if I succeed I shall be happy to have been the first.”
—Italian Lieutenant Giulio Gavotti
At its inception, aerial bombardment was a weapon of empire deployed to subdue colonial populations. Soon, during the Second World War, civilians in Europe and Japan came into the bomber’s crosshairs, and ever since non-combatant targets have been at the heart of military strategy. It was a seismic shift in the relations of power: as the state justified the mass murder of civilians, individual combatants, flying high above their victims, were distanced from the act of killing as never before.
The ascendance of drones as an instrument of military power is the latest stage in this cruel evolution, which has led to a perpetual low-intensity war on the global scene. As the technology enabling it spreads through the world, the borders of the conflict will grow in proportion.
In this short and fascinating history of aerial warfare, Thomas Hippler brings together all the major themes of the past century: nationalism, democracy, totalitarianism, colonialism, globalization, the welfare state and its decline, and the rise of neoliberalism. Air power is the defining characteristic of modern warfare; as Hippler demonstrates, it is also ingrained in the nature of modern politics.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Hippler (Bombing the People), a philosopher and historian at Sciences Po Lyon in France, sidesteps traditional battle history in favor of a thoughtful analysis of bombing's role in the conduct of political affairs over the past century. He opens his account with Louis Bl riot's pioneering 1909 flight across the English Channel from France to England. The event was widely cheered, but astute observers realized it heralded a new form of warfare. Hippler segues from there into his main theme, the democratization of war in the 20th century. Where warfare had previously been a clash of professionals on the battlefield, with civilians considered innocent bystanders, WWI made it clear that no great power (electoral democracy or not) could fight without the participation of its citizenry. Thus, civilians became legitimate military targets in subsequent wars, and were usually targeted from the air. This erosion of the military/civilian distinction is less revolutionary than it may at first appear, because European armies had already deemed civilians legitimate targets in their colonial wars. The book is a scholarly work and occasionally lapses into academic prolixity, but Hippler writes for a popular audience and delivers a mostly clear, convincing argument that armed aircraft (drones included) have become the weapon of choice for great powers attempting to deter rivals and maintain the world order.