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James M. Scott’s Black Snow: Curtis LeMay, the Firebombing of Tokyo, and the Road to the Atomic Bomb comes just when the deliberate targeting of civilians in war has again become a major issue for Americans. Over the last six months, hardly a day has gone by without nightly television offering up horrifying pictures of Russian missiles and artillery striking Ukrainian citizens in their workplaces and their homes.
Black Snow tells us with great insight and detail what went into America’s thinking more than 75 years ago when it decided to target Japan’s citizens in World War II. The firebombing of Tokyo came at a time when America and the Allies were clearly winning the war and in no danger of having their homelands bombed. America had a variety of options for bringing the war against Japan to a close.
James Scott, a gifted writer of narrative nonfiction, is ideally suited to provide an account of the last months of America’s air war against Japan. In his 2015 book, Target Tokyo, Scott told the story of Jimmy Doolittle’s 1942 raid on Tokyo, which took place just months after Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor and long before America had built up its military strength in the Pacific.