The Bomb: Nuclear Weapons in their Historical, Strategic and Ethical Context(Turning Points)

This tightly argued and profoundly thought provoking book tackles a huge subject: the coming of the nuclear age with bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, and the ways in which it has changed our lives since. Dr Heuser sets these events in their historical context, exploring whether they were indeed a turning point in WWII itself, and whether they were inherently different from incidents of conventional warfare with similarly massive death tolls. She then looks at the development of subsequent nuclear strategy around the world, before tackling key issues about the effect of nuclear weapons on modern attitudes to conflict, and on the ethics of warfare. Ducking nothing, she demystifies the subject, seeing 'the bomb' not as something unique and paralysing, but as an integral part of the strategic and moral context of our time.

Table of Contents:
List of Figures lX List of Tables x Acknowledgements xi Introduction 1 1. A Turning Point of World War II? 7 A turning point in World War II 8 Was the bombing necessary? 19 The suffering of the victims 24 2. A Turning Point in Strategy? 35 Air strategy until 1945 35 Air strategy in practice since World War II 65 Nuclear strategies 85 3. A Turning Point in the Development of 'Total War'? 102 Definitions of 'total war' and the link with totalitarianism 104 Have any wars prior to World War II been Total Wars? 114 The war aims of the major powers in World War II 119 Conclusions: What is the relationship between nuclear war and Total War? 131 4. A Turning Point in the Thinking about the Morality Of War? 135 Immorality of war 136 Pacifism before the nineteenth century 139 From the wars of the French Revolution to World War I 143 Socialist opposition to nationalist wars 145 Pacifism in the inter-war period 147 Hiroshima and Nagasaki 154 Peace movements directed by the USSR since 1945: from political tool to political self-destruction 158 Anti-nuclear protests in Protestant cultures 162 War, nuclear weapons and non-Protestant cultures 175 Conclusion 189 5. A Turning Point in the History of Warfare and Inter-societal Relations? 192 Human history and the history of warfare 193 Societal and cultural-ideological causes of war 207 Conclusions 222 Useful Further Reading 224 Index