This is a preview of the digital audiobook of The Bomber Mafia by Malcolm Gladwell, available on Libro.fm at https://libro.fm/audiobooks/9781735803227?cmp=librosoundcloud_2021. 

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The Bomber Mafia
A Dream, a Temptation, and the Longest Night of the Second World War
By: Malcolm Gladwell
Narrated by: Malcolm Gladwell
Length: 5 hours 14 minutes
“A thought-provoking, accessible account of how people respond to difficult choices in difficult times... Gladwell’s easy conversational style works well… and his admiration for the Bomber Mafia shines through. His portraits of individuals are compelling."—Diana Preston, Washington Post

“Truly compelling… written in New York Times bestseller Malcolm Gladwell's characteristic approachable, story-telling style.”—Zibby Owens, Good Morning America

"A riveting tale of persistence, obsession, innovation, and the incalculable wages of war... The Bomber Mafia looks at one of the greatest moral challenges of the Second World War."—Michael Lewis, Against the Rules

In The Bomber Mafia: A Dream, a Temptation, and the Longest Night of the Second World War, Malcolm Gladwell, author of New York Times bestsellers including Talking to Strangers and host of the podcast Revisionist History, uses original interviews, archival footage and his trademark insight to weave together the stories of a Dutch genius and his homemade computer, a band of brothers in central Alabama, a British psychopath, and pyromaniacal chemists at Harvard. As listeners hear these stories unfurl, Gladwell examines one of the greatest moral challenges in modern American history.

Description
Most military thinkers in the years leading up to World War II saw the airplane as an afterthought. But a small band of idealistic strategists had a different view. This “Bomber Mafia” asked: What if precision bombing could, just by taking out critical choke points—industrial or transportation hubs—cripple the enemy and make war far less lethal?

In Revisionist History, Gladwell re-examines moments from the past and asks whether we got it right the first time. In The Bomber Mafia, he employs all the production techniques that make Revisionist History so engaging, stepping back from the bombing of Tokyo, the deadliest night of the war, and asking, “Was it worth it?” The attack was the brainchild of General Curtis LeMay, whose brutal pragmatism and scorched-earth tactics in Japan cost thousands of civilian lives but may have spared more by averting a planned US invasion.

Things might have gone differently had LeMay’s predecessor, General Haywood Hansell, remained in charge. As a key member of the Bomber Mafia, Hansell’s theories of precision bombing had been foiled by bad weather and human error. When he and Curtis LeMay squared off for a leadership handover in the jungles of Guam, LeMay emerged victorious, leading to the darkest night of World War II.

The Bomber Mafia is a riveting tale of persistence, innovation, and the incalculable wages of war.

The Bomber Mafia By Malcolm Gladwell (Audiobook Excerpt)

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