Among the Dead Cities by AC Grayling
(Bloomsbury, £20)
At the beginning of this excellent book on the morality of area bombing in the second world war, AC Grayling explains the origins of his personal interest in the aerial war between 1939 and 1945. As a small boy in the 1950s, he fantasised about being a fighter pilot in the battle of
Britain. He made model aircraft from kits and knew all the different varieties of fighters and bombers on both sides. Like him and thousands of others, I did the same-and in that spirit I must mention that the aircraft on the front cover of the book are not, as the caption says, British Lancasters, but American B-24 Liberators.
Aside from that slip, Grayling’s book is comprehensive and accurate. He considers every important historical and ethical angle of the problem. He gives the courage of the bomber crews and their heavy losses their due, as well as the plight of German women and children trapped in burning cities.
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