Presenting a global history of aerial bombardment, this book shows how certain European powers initiated aerial bombardment of civilians after World War I, and how it was an instrument of choice in World War II. Beau Grosscup shows that such methods, used initially as a means of terrorizing native populations in Africa and the Middle East, have become the primary form of terrorism in more recent decades.

While such 'strategic terror' is not classed as 'terrorism' in the West, this reflects an unwillingness to confront the human costs and immorality of aerial bombardment. Grosscup argues that if terrorism is to be diminished, the role of aerial bombing in sustaining global violence must be recognized.

Beau Grosscup is a professor of international relations at California State University, Chico.

1. Shock and Awe!! Shock and Awe!!
2. The Origins of Strategic Bombing
3. Who is to be Bombed? The Self and Other in Imperial Culture
4. Strategic Bombing Comes of Age
5. Cold War Strategic Bombing: From Korea to Vietnam
6. Terrorists in the Bombsites
7. Strategic Bombing in the 1990s
8. Bombing to Win: 9/11 and the War on Terrorism
9. Dodging the Terrorism Label
10. Terror from the Skies