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  • Published: 19 July 2022
  • ISBN: 9780141998374
  • Imprint: Penguin Press
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 256
  • RRP: $22.99

The Bomber Mafia

A Story Set in War




A riveting exploration of the unforeseen consequences of technological disruption, from the no.1 international bestselling author

What is the price of progress?

In this tale of innovation and obsession Gladwell revisits one of the bloodiest attacks of the Second World War to show what happens when technological inventions slip out of our control.

Weaving together the stories of a group of renegade pilots, the ruthless bomber commander of the US Air Force, a reclusive Dutch genius and his homemade computer, a team of pyromaniacal chemists at Harvard and Winston Churchill's forbidding best friend, The Bomber Mafia invites us to rethink the moral certainties, good intentions and unforeseen consequences that so often accompany shiny new inventions.

  • Published: 19 July 2022
  • ISBN: 9780141998374
  • Imprint: Penguin Press
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 256
  • RRP: $22.99

About the author

Malcolm Gladwell

Malcolm Gladwell is the author of five international bestsellers: The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers, What the Dog Saw, and David and Goliath. He is the host of the podcast Revisionist History and is a staff writer at The New Yorker. He was named one of the 100 most influential people by Time magazine and one of the Foreign Policy's Top Global Thinkers. Previously, he was a reporter with the Washington Post, where he covered business and science, and then served as the newspaper's New York City bureau chief. He graduated from the University of Toronto, Trinity College, with a degree in history. Gladwell was born in England and grew up in rural Ontario. He lives in New York.

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Praise for The Bomber Mafia

A parable written for the age of technological disruption . . . brilliantly told

James McConnachie, Sunday Times

Unexpected empathy . . . fabulistic energy

Esquire

Lively, engaging . . . a fascinating story

Gerard DeGroot, The Times

Gripping . . . in Gladwell's deft hands, the Air Force generals of World War II come back to life as the stirring 20th-century equivalent of Adm. Horatio Nelson and his band of audacious captains from the age of fighting sail . . . Gladwell is a wonderful storyteller

Thomas E. Ricks, The New York Times

A thought-provoking, accessible account of how people respond to difficult choices in difficult times . . . Gladwell's easy conversational style works well . . . his portraits of individuals are compelling

Diana Preston, Washington Post

Riveting . . .The Bomber Mafia looks at one of the greatest moral challenges of the Second World War

Michael Lewis, author of The Fifth Risk

Impassioned . . . engagingly written

Saul David, Telegraph

Told with the muscular, driving narrative and fizzingly charismatic (real-life) characters of a movie

Ed Grenby, Radio Times

Remarkable . . . a work of art . . . one puts this book down shaking one's head at the folly and human cost of it all

Paul Kennedy, Wall Street Journal

Important and characteristically readable . . . Gladwell is possibly the most confident storyteller in non-fiction. He always knows exactly where he is going, and he takes you with him in pleasure and comfort.

Simon Kuper, New Statesman

Gladwell's eloquence and flair for lateral thinking make for a compelling read

Simon Griffith, Mail on Sunday