The bombers and the bombed Allied air war over Europe 1940-1945

BUILDING A BETTER TEACHER: How Teaching Works (and How to Teach It to Everyone), by Elizabeth Green. (Norton, $16.95.) Abandoning the myth of the "natural-born teacher," Green argues that effective teaching is often the result of cultivating a precise skill set, not an individual's charisma. Her account reports on the research behind teacher training and considers how to introduce these methods into more classrooms. A BRIEF HISTORY OF SEVEN KILLINGS, by Marlon James. (Riverhead, $17.) The winner of this year's Man Booker Prize, James's third novel is centered on the real-life 1976 assassination attempt on Bob Marley, chronicling nearly three decades of violence and political upheaval that originated in Kingston and spilled into Brooklyn, Miami and beyond. Equal parts "spoof, nightmare, blood bath, poem," the story "takes on a mesmerizing power," Zachary Lazar wrote here. ALL THE TRUTH IS OUT: THE WEEK POLITICS WENT TAB-LOID, by Matt Bai. (Vintage, $15.95.) Gary Hart, once the front-runner for the 1988 Democratic nomination, is at the heart of this engrossing account, which describes how the press reported on Hart's rumored affairs, torpedoing his political career and breaking an unspoken understanding that journalists would keep quiet about politicians' dalliances. Bai, a former New York Times Magazine writer, calls this a turning point that continues to shape politics and media. SEE HOW SMALL, by Scott Blackwood. (Back Bay/Little, Brown, $14.99.) Blackwood's novel, based on the unsolved murders of four teenagers in 1991 Texas, considers the lasting impact of violence. Narrated by a chorus of the city's residents, including a brain-injured veteran who witnessed the crime, the book forms a thoughtful portrait of a grieving town. THE BOMBERS AND THE BOMBED: Allied Air War Over Europe, 1940-1945, by Richard Overy. (Penguin, $18.) The Allied-led area bombing campaign of German civilian areas remains hotly contested: Its supporters have argued that the practice was the best option to defeat Hitler, while its detractors denounce the strategy as unfocused and unnecessarily brutal. The author soberly evaluates its genesis, implementation and legacy, including the moral questions that still linger. THE ASSASSINATION OF MARGARET THATCHER: Stories, by Hilary Mantel. (Picador, $16.) A master storyteller, Mantel, whose historical, Tudor-era novels "Wolf Hall" and "Bring Up the Bodies" both won the Man Booker Prize, joins classic storytelling techniques with the surreal in this collection, which our reviewer, Terry Castle, praised as an "unusually mordant verbal fantasia." POOR MAN'S FEAST: A Love Story of Comfort, Desire, and the Art of Simple Cooking, by Elissa Altman. (Berkley, $16.) Altman, a former food editor who once favored haute cuisine, recounts her transformative romance with Susan Turner, who found balance, simplicity and peace in a small Connecticut town. ?

The air war over Europe in WWII is estimated to have killed 600,000 civilians. Some of these deaths were, in today's terms, collateral damage from attacks on military or industrial targets. But many deaths were the result of deliberate terror bombings in an effort to destroy houses of workers and to demoralize the population. The question posed by British history professor Overy in this superb work is, Was it worth it? Surprisingly, he doesn't spend much time on the morality of bombing, although his descriptions of the horrible suffering of civilian populations are certainly startling. Rather, he relies on a massive trove of primary sources from both Allied and Axis sources to assert that the various bombing campaigns were a waste of military resources. Despite claims of success by the military, aerial bombing was ridiculously inaccurate, and the casualty rate for air crews was very high. The attacks tended to unite rather than demoralize civilians. There is, of course, another side to this question, but Overy has presented a very strong case in support of his view.--Freeman, Jay Copyright 2010 Booklist

WWII scholar Overy (The Twilight Years) brings his expertise in aerial operations to this first comprehensive analysis of the Allied strategic bombing offensive in Europe. He addresses the subject from three interrelated perspectives: the planning and execution of the air campaign; the Axis responses; and the oft-overlooked experiences of those under Axis occupation who were "bombed into freedom." Overy acknowledges that until mid-1944, an air offensive was the Western Allies' only feasible way of attacking Germany directly, yet the raids' limited success initially led some to question whether "bombing by itself" could be decisive in the war. Insistence that it "would shorten the war," combined with the belief that daylight precision bombardment would "completely... dislocate German industry and communications," led to an attrition campaign against the world's most sophisticated defenses. It produced marginal results until the Americans concentrated on the aircraft industry, and on oil production and delivery. Overy's model analysis of "German Society under the Bombs" reveals how the Reich's economy and morale withstood the bomber offensive, though elsewhere in Germany's New Order, as military considerations obscured political ones, bombing became "more vigorous and less discriminate." Postwar reconstruction correspondingly resembled "recovery from a natural disaster"-which the bomber offensive closely resembled. Agent: Gill Coleridge; Rogers, Coleridge & White (U.K.). (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Historians still argue over how much, if at all, strategic bombing contributed to defeating Hitler. This magisterial overview will not end the debate, but it skillfully illuminates all sides. Demonstrating his exhaustive research, Overy (History/Univ. of Exeter; 1939: Countdown to War, 2011) begins the first chapter, "Bombing Bulgaria," with a description of a destructive campaign that undermined the pro-German government, which managed to persist until the Soviet army arrived. Few readers will ignore the lesson. Throughout World War II, British Bomber command believed that it could devastate the war-making capacities of the Nazis. Within months, losses forced a switch to nighttime bombing, which made accuracy nearly impossible. Overy delivers an insightful analysis of how all nations reversed their abhorrence of killing civilians when it became unavoidable. The British were not taking revenge for the Blitz; their conversion had already occurred. The United States assumed its more heavily armed bombers (with lesser payloads) could defend themselves during the day and hit targets precisely. Both beliefs proved wrong, but America stuck to daylight bombing despite terrible losses. Both nations exaggerated the damage that their bombers caused, but good evidence exists that a major effort against Nazi oil production caused crippling shortages during 1944 and 1945. Overy provides an eye-opening and often distressing account of the bombing of Europe's occupied nations, whose defenses were far less prepared than Germany's. More bombs fell on France and Italy than England. "The moral response to bombing and being bombed was historically complex and sometimes surprising," writes the author. Readers looking for dramatic accounts of specific bombing missions should read a selection of books by British military historian Martin Middlebrook. For a far more expansive view that includes those on the receiving end, Overy is the choice.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.