Choices Under Fire: Moral Dimensions of World War II

Published by Vintage, 2008, softcover, index, 395 pages, condition: as new.

World War II was the quintessential good war. It was not, however, a conflict free of moral ambiguity, painful dilemmas, and unavoidable compromises. Was the bombing of civilian populations in Germany and Japan justified? Were the Nuremberg and Tokyo war crimes trials legally scrupulous? What is the legacy bequeathed to the world by Hiroshima? With wisdom and clarity, Michael Bess brings a fresh eye to these difficult questions and others, arguing eloquently against the binaries of honor and dishonor, pride and shame, and points instead toward a nuanced reckoning with one of the most pivotal conflicts in human history.

Michael Bess is professor of history at Vanderbilt University. He is the author of The Light Green Society: Ecology and Technological Modernity in France, 1960-2000, and Realism, Utopia, and the Mushroom Cloud: Four Activist Intellectuals and Their Strategies for Peace, 1945-1989.