Tightly-argued and profoundly thought-provoking, this history considers the birth of the nuclear age and its impact on the world and attitudes to modern warfare.

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