
The Bomber Mafia
A Dream, a Temptation, and the Longest Night of the Second World War
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Narrated by:
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Malcolm Gladwell
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By:
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Malcolm Gladwell
About this listen
In The Bomber Mafia: A Dream, a Temptation, and the Longest Night of the Second World War, Malcolm Gladwell, author of New York Times best sellers 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.
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 reexamines 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.
©2021 Malcolm Gladwell (P)2021 Malcolm GladwellListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“The Bomber Mafia is a parable written for the age of technological disruption.” (The Times, London)
"Gladwell is a wonderful storyteller. When he is introducing characters and showing them in conflict, The Bomber Mafia is gripping. I enjoyed this short book thoroughly, and would have been happy if it had been twice as long." (The New York Times)
“An innovative audio book with music, sound effects and archival clips. Gladwell’s easy conversational style works well, and his admiration for the Bomber Mafia shines through.” (The Washington Post)
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Revenge of the Tipping Point
- Overstories, Superspreaders, and the Rise of Social Engineering
- By: Malcolm Gladwell
- Narrated by: Malcolm Gladwell
- Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Why is Miami… Miami? What does the heartbreaking fate of the cheetah tell us about the way we raise our children? Why do Ivy League schools care so much about sports? What is the Magic Third, and what does it mean for racial harmony? In this provocative new work, Malcolm Gladwell returns to the subject of social epidemics and tipping points, this time with the aim of explaining the dark side of contagious phenomena. Through a series of gripping stories, Gladwell traces the rise of a new and troubling form of social engineering
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Lame
- By Kindle Customer on 10-09-24
By: Malcolm Gladwell
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The Tipping Point
- How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
- By: Malcolm Gladwell
- Narrated by: Malcolm Gladwell
- Length: 8 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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The tipping point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire. Just as a single sick person can start an epidemic of the flu, so too can a small but precisely targeted push cause a fashion trend, the popularity of a new product, or a drop in the crime rate. This widely acclaimed bestseller, in which Malcolm Gladwell explores and brilliantly illuminates the tipping point phenomenon, is already changing the way people throughout the world think about selling products and disseminating ideas.
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My tipping point…for audio
- By Mod on 04-17-12
By: Malcolm Gladwell
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Outliers
- The Story of Success
- By: Malcolm Gladwell
- Narrated by: Malcolm Gladwell
- Length: 7 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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In this stunning audiobook, Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of "outliers" - the best and the brightest, the most famous, and the most successful. He asks the question: What makes high-achievers different? His answer is that we pay too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to where they are from: That is, their culture, their family, their generation, and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing.
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Engaging, but overrated
- By Scott T. Hards on 12-13-08
By: Malcolm Gladwell
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Talking to Strangers
- What We Should Know About the People We Don't Know
- By: Malcolm Gladwell
- Narrated by: Malcolm Gladwell
- Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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How did Fidel Castro fool the CIA for a generation? Why did Neville Chamberlain think he could trust Adolf Hitler? Why are campus sexual assaults on the rise? Do television sitcoms teach us something about the way we relate to each other that isn't true? While tackling these questions, Malcolm Gladwell was not solely writing a book for the page. He was also producing for the ear. In the audiobook version of Talking to Strangers, you’ll hear the voices of people he interviewed - scientists, criminologists, military psychologists.
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Enjoyable listen with some facts incorrect
- By Jim on 09-11-19
By: Malcolm Gladwell
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Bomber
- By: Len Deighton, Malcolm Gladwell (Introduction)
- Narrated by: Richard Burnip, Malcolm Gladwell (Introduction), Len Deighton (Author's Note)
- Length: 21 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Skilled Royal Air Force bomber pilot Sam Lambert is exhausted, and his veteran crewmen have just been replaced by an inexperienced new team. Victor von Löwenherz, a German night fighter pilot who intercepts RAF bombers in his Junkers Ju 88, looks on with horror at the Nazi regime. And Hansl, a German boy in the small market town of Altgarten, sleeps at home. Lambert and his crew prepare for a bombing raid on the Ruhr area. It’s a night that many will never forget. Bomber is a masterful, gripping minute-by-minute account of what occurs over the next twenty-four hours.
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Great writing, awful narrartion
- By JW on 09-11-23
By: Len Deighton, and others
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The Corruption of Malcolm Gladwell
- By: Yasha Levine
- Narrated by: Virtual Voice
- Length: 2 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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It may be hard to imagine that Malcolm Gladwell, a staff writer for the New Yorker and bestselling author beloved by millions of readers, could be a crooked propagandist for some of the most toxic and destructive industries on the planet. Investigative journalist Yasha Levine didn't think it was possible, either—at least not until he happened to stumble across an old article by Gladwell defending the tobacco industry, and discovered a paper trail that led him to the shocking truth... Levine presents well-sourced evidence showing that Gladwell spent his entire career systematically and ...
By: Yasha Levine
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Miracle and Wonder (Special Edition)
- Conversations with Paul Simon
- By: Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam
- Narrated by: Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam, Paul Simon
- Length: 5 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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What happens when Paul Simon, widely considered one of the greatest songwriters in music history, and Malcolm Gladwell, the bestselling author and podcast host, sit down together, with a tape recorder and a guitar? Miracle and Wonder: Conversations with Paul Simon is part memoir, part investigation, and unlike any creative portrait you’ve ever heard before.
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Repetitive, in need of editing
- By BK on 03-20-24
By: Malcolm Gladwell, and others
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Endure
- Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance
- By: Alexander Hutchinson, Malcolm Gladwell - foreword
- Narrated by: Robert G. Slade
- Length: 11 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Writing from both the cutting edge of scientific discovery and the front-lines of elite athletic performance, National Magazine Award-winning science journalist Alex Hutchinson presents a revolutionary account of the dynamic and controversial new science of endurance.
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Loved the content; narration frustrated me
- By Riverside Fan on 03-01-18
By: Alexander Hutchinson, and others
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Adam Gopnik and Malcolm Gladwell
- Surveying Mankind from China to Peru
- By: Malcolm Gladwell, Adam Gopnik
- Narrated by: Daniel Sullivan, Henry Timms
- Length: 1 hr and 18 mins
- Original Recording
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New Yorker essayist Adam Gopnik and sociologist Malcolm Gladwell revisit their debates about healthcare, education, media, and a variety of other subjects. The event, introduced by Daniel Sullivan, general consul of Canada, and Simon Center director Henry Timms is followed by an extensive Q&A.
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Delightful Conversation
- By Dr Deb on 03-28-13
By: Malcolm Gladwell, and others
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The Aviators
- Eddie Rickenbacker, Jimmy Doolittle, Charles Lindbergh, and the Epic Age of Flight
- By: Winston Groom
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 17 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Gifted storyteller Winston Groom, the best-selling author of Forrest Gump, has written the fascinating story of three extraordinary heroes who defined aviation during the great age of flight: Charles Lindbergh, Eddie Rickenbacker, and Jimmy Doolittle. These cleverly interwoven tales of their heart-stopping adventures take us from the feats of World War I through the heroism of World War II and beyond, including daring military raids and survival at sea, and will appeal to fans of Unbroken, The Greatest Generation, and Flyboys.
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Too much a hagiography
- By Joseph Valenzi on 09-08-15
By: Winston Groom
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The Tipping Point
- By: Malcolm Gladwell
- Narrated by: Malcolm Gladwell
- Length: 3 hrs and 4 mins
- Abridged
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The tipping point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire. Just as a single sick person can start an epidemic of the flu, so too can a small but precisely targeted push cause a fashion trend, the popularity of a new product, or a drop in the crime rate. This widely acclaimed bestseller, in which Malcolm Gladwell explores and brilliantly illuminates the tipping point phenomenon, is already changing the way people throughout the world think about selling products and disseminating ideas.
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An interesting listen
- By Z on 08-10-05
By: Malcolm Gladwell
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Man Who Flew The Memphis Belle
- By: Robert Morgan, Ron Powers
- Narrated by: uncredited
- Length: 4 hrs and 51 mins
- Abridged
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As a young man growing up in Asheville, North Carolina, Robert Morgan was a fast-driving party boy - a hell-raiser. But when his mother committed suicide upon learning she had inoperable brain cancer, Morgan's life changed dramatically. He was no longer a carefree playboy; he was a man searching for meaning. He found that meaning at the controls of an airplane, and in the flak-and fighter-filled skies over Occupied France and Nazi Germany.
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Abridged Version = Butchered
- By Kyle on 01-03-17
By: Robert Morgan, and others
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Duped
- Truth-Default Theory and the Social Science of Lying and Deception
- By: Timothy R. Levine
- Narrated by: Scott R. Pollak
- Length: 14 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Timothy R. Levine’s Duped: Truth-Default Theory and the Social Science of Lying and Deception recounts a decades-long program of empirical research that culminates in a new theory of deception-truth-default theory. This theory holds that the content of incoming communication is typically and uncritically accepted as true, and most of the time, this is good. Truth-default allows humans to function socially.
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A Modern Allegory of the Cave
- By Mountain K9iner on 10-11-20
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Plane Crashes
- The 10 Deadliest Air Disasters and the Lessons We Learned to Improve Aviation Safety
- By: Oliver Elliott
- Narrated by: Tom Brooks
- Length: 3 hrs
- Unabridged
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Air travel is one of the safest modes of transportation, but when an aircraft crashes, the consequence is devastating. Why did they happen? Were they caused by bad weather, mechanical failure, or human errors? In this book, the author introduces the 10 deadliest plane crashes in aviation history. He goes through the key events that brought down the doomed commercial jets, and he discusses how we used the painful lessons to improve aviation safety.
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Kept me hooked during my daily commute
- By Mitch on 04-20-25
By: Oliver Elliott
What listeners say about The Bomber Mafia
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- James
- 06-26-21
Interesting, but unbalanced, with gaps
I found the book entertaining and interesting.
However, I was repeatedly dismayed at the odd gaps it seemed to have and the bias it sometimes showed.
The audiobook production was very good, though some of the sound effects came across as trite.
I'd recommend it, but you may need to fill in the gaps to have the complete picture.
As far as gaps:
- It talked about the growth of the Army Air Corps, but made no mention of Billy Mitchell
- It talked about the Air Corps Tactical School not having books or journals to read, but there were some books on the subject available to them, including Douhet's "Command of the Air" and a few others
- It talks at length about the Norden bomb sight and the problems with it but doesn't talk about its overall effectiveness or repairs to it
- It didn't even mention Doolittle's Raid, even when talking about the bombing of Japan
- It mentioned both atom bombs but only mentioned the Enola Gay
In terms of bias, the author clearly respects the hardline members of 'bomber mafia' mindset, even when they fail to get results. However, he seems quite opposed to Curtis LeMay and clearly likes Hansell. His approach to this doesn't seem at all balanced.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 12-27-21
Why aren’t more audiobooks as well-done as this?!
The Bomber Mafia is an exceptionally well done and engaging audiobook — perhaps the first audiobook to achieve this distinction. As an avid reader (listener), I can only hope that more audiobooks follow suit instead of resorting to some monotone reading of a text without any of the tools used by this book to keep readers engaged.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Keith T
- 05-02-21
Another enjoyable experience
Loved the Historical characters and their perspective at that time. Looking back on that time and those who lived them is hard to hear. And Malcolm does a good job of maintaining a balanced view that I respect and appreciate.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Kad
- 05-16-21
A good thread of history.
This story tells how daylight precision bombing came to be, and was abandoned in the late stage of the war against Japan.
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1 person found this helpful
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- thexhuckg
- 06-17-21
Excellent very full audio book
This is a story that is beautifully told by gladwell with excerpts perfectly laced in.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Bob DelGIorno
- 09-18-21
Gladwell does it again!
Malcolm Gladwell has done a superb job of chronicling the technical, personal and strategic development of one characteristic of warfare that has carried forward from the onset of WWI to the present day.. High altitude bombing and the ramifications of precision bombing saving lives. Delving into the personal background of the key players, Gladwell has personalized the motives and outcomes of key decisions in a fantastic manner that draws the listener in and places you in the hotseat as these men shaped the outcome of modern warfare. This is a MUST listen/read for any WWII, Aviation, or 20th Century History enthusiast.
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- Amazon Customer
- 07-20-21
Well done and intriguing
Very well done and a great topic. Don’t agree with all the conclusions but a fair treatment of the issues.
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- Gina Fisher
- 06-02-21
Galdwell does it again
interesting book and really shows war from the strategic side and the history which the tactical elements occurred.
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- Mark Walker
- 08-21-21
Did Hansel really win the war?
Great story. But it should be noted that the US has never “won” a war using high-tech precision weapons. Only overwhelming violent force wins. With precision weapons, the adversary adapts, hides, avoids and mingles. The fighting goes on for 20 years, the pain endures and lingers, and the psychological damage is greater. There is no effort to win quickly to ultimately reduce damage.
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- evan henke
- 05-02-21
Great Story
A great historical point-of-view, usually WWII books follows very specific pattern and concept, this book takes you through facts and historical nuance that is awesome absolutely worth reading! So much better as an audiobook, the audio clips make it so engaging! And as a side note ignore the "internet troll" reviews that poorly rate this because it's has material covered in his podcast, it's worth it, and sometimes you support an author by buying a book instead of being a scrounge.
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