Représentations urbaines et bombardements stratégiques, 1914-1945

Concepts of Strategic Bombing, 1914-1945. Strategic bombing encapsulated a certain set of assumptions about how cities function and urban populations behave. These assumptions, which show many points in common with statements by contemporary writers and social scientists, highlighted the instability of the urban crowd, and its dependence upon a permanent infrastructure for public services. Area bombing sought to precipitate panic in the urban crowd, m the expectation that social disorder associated with air raids would bring a government closer to surrender. Precision bombing sought to destroy critical factories in the industrial economy and vital links in supply routes, but it also extended its scope to include vital public services upon which industry, transportation and urban populations all depended in the expectation that the destruction of these services would cripple an enemy's industrial economy. Air raids caused less economic and social disorder than expected. Yet few analysis of air raids examined the urban assumptions on which the strategy of bombing rested. The life of cities in air war, however, can illuminate certain aspects of urban existence which cannot be as easily apprehended during peace.Konvitz Josef W. Représentations urbaines et bombardements stratégiques, 1914-1945. In: Annales. Economies, sociétés, civilisations. 44ᵉ année, N. 4, 1989. pp. 823-847