I’ve provided the pdf of the (unedited) slides for another new lecture in my Cities, space and power course under the TEACHING tab: it’s on bombing cities in the First and Second World Wars.

There’s only so much you can cover in a single lecture, so I focus on Britain and Germany; as I’ve been at pains to point out elsewhere, there were many other ‘blitzes’ during the Second World War, and I’ve addressed Hiroshima and Nagasaki in my ‘Little Boys and Blue skies’ essay (which will soon be available to download).

This lecture covers:

1. The First World War: Zeppelins and Gothas over London
2. Inter-war reflections and admonitions
3. The London Blitz
4. Firestorms: Bombing Hamburg and Cologne