THE BOMBER MAFIA
A STORY SET IN WAR
MALCOLM GLADWELL
Allen Lane, 256pp, £20 The bestselling author of highconcept popular science books, written in a homely style, turns his attention to the Second World War. ‘A novelty of this book is that Gladwell says it began as an audiobook and then became a written one, reversing the usual process,’ noted Thomas E Ricks in the New York Times Book
Review. ‘It is indeed a conversational work, almost garrulous at times... However, this chatty style also glides over some important historical questions. Gladwell is a wonderful storyteller. When he is introducing characters and showing them in conflict, The Bomber Mafia is gripping. I enjoyed this short book thoroughly, and would have been happy if it had been twice as long. But when Gladwell leaps to provide superlative assessments, or draws broad lessons of history from isolated incidents, he makes me wary.’
Military historian Saul David was rather less generous in the
Telegraph. This ‘is Gladwell’s first foray into military history and, while engagingly written, it is bedevilled by the same oversimplification of the world into a single Big Idea that is characteristic of his other work... In Gladwell’s binary world (precision bombing = GOOD, area bombing = BAD) Hansell is a hero and Lemay a villain. He also places in the latter camp Arthur Harris, the RAF’S chief supporter of area bombing, whom the author calls a “psychopath”. The war might have ended earlier, Gladwell claimed in a recent interview, had the RAF not conducted itself so “recklessly”.’ David’s assessment was that ‘by using one-dimensional figures to prop up a misleading thesis, The Bomber Mafia reveals itself as history lite.’