Rain of Ruin

This is a new book. Condition: Brand New.

A remarkable account of the terrible climax of the Second World War in Asia

In the closing months of the Second World War hundreds of thousands of Japanese, mostly civilians, died in a final outburst of violence from the air. American planes were beginning to run low on plausible targets when it was decided to use two atomic weapons in a final, terrible flourish to try to end the war.

Richard Overy's remarkable new book rethinks how we should regard this last stage of the war and the role of the bombing. This book explores the way in which the willingness to kill civilians and destroy cities became normalized in the course of a horrific war as moral concerns were blunted and scientists, airmen, and politicians followed a strategy of mass destruction they would never have endorsed before the war began. But it also engages with the new scholarship that shows how complex the effort to end the war was in Japan, where 'surrender' was entirely foreign to Japanese culture.

Book details and technical specifications

Format: Paperback / softback
ISBN13: 9781802065978
Published: March 2026

Number of pages: 224
Width: 128 mm
Height: 197 mm
Depth: 14 mm

Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd