The Bomb: Nuclear Weapons in their Historical, Strategic and Ethical Context

by Heuser,D.B.G.

• ISBN13: 9780582292901
• ISBN10: 0582292905
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 1999-08-20
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

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 and tackles 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. For a wide multidisciplinary and general readership.

Author Biography

Beatrice Heuser is Senior Lecturer in the Department of War Studies at King's College London where she has taught since 1991.

Table of Contents

List of Figures	ix
List of Tables	x
Acknowledgements	xi
Introduction	1	(6)
A Turning Point of World War II?	7	(28)
A turning point in World War II	8	(11)
Was the bombing necessary?	19	(5)
The suffering of the victims	24	(11)
A Turning Point in Strategy?	35	(67)
Air strategy until 1945	35	(30)
Air strategy in practice since World War II	65	(20)
Nuclear strategies	85	(17)
A Turning Point in the Development of `Total War'?	102	(33)
Definitions of `total war' and the link with totalitarianism	104	(10)
Have any wars prior to World War II been Total Wars?	114	(5)
The war aims of the major powers in World War II	119	(12)
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	(57)
Immorality of war	136	(3)
Pacifism before the nineteenth century	139	(4)
From the wars of the French Revolution to World War I	143	(2)
Socialist opposition to nationalist wars	145	(2)
Pacifism in the inter-war period	147	(7)
Hiroshima and Nagasaki	154	(4)
Peace movements directed by the USSR since 1945: from political tool to political self-destruction	158	(4)
Anti-nuclear protests in Protestant cultures	162	(13)
War, nuclear weapons and non-Protestant cultures	175	(14)
Conclusion	189	(3)
A Turning Point in the History of Warfare and Inter-societal Relations?	192	(32)
Human history and the history of warfare	193	(14)
Societal and cultural-ideological causes of war	207	(15)
Conclusions	222	(2)
Useful Further Reading	224	(4)
Index	228