Because Mr Wright is Evil

Questions!!
 Ultimately that is what the proposal is about so I have done some thinking (some say lateral), and I have come up with this Main Question:
Evaluate the different perspectives of the Bombing of Dresden?
I want to look at David Irving's book because it is one of the more controversial looks on Dresden.
I intend to look at the works of about 5 authors (A.C Grayling, Kurt Vonnegut, P. Addison and JA Crang, D Irving and someone else.) too much or too little?

plus some subsidiary questions:
Do the rules of war change as the war changes?
How has David Irving and his book, The Destruction of Dresden (1963), influenced the debate over Dresden?
Did the outcome of WW1 influence the decision of bombing Dresden?


I'm also thinking of mentioning the blockade of Germany during WW1, would that be too broad or is it fair game. Keep in mind that this is a work in progress

Proposal

Here is what I have so far (just putting it here so I don't lose it):

My first interest into the bombing campaigns of Second World War began in 2006 whilst reading Kevin Wilson's, Men of Air: The Doomed Youth of Bomber Command. My initial research, prompted by my history extension teacher Mr Wright, was an inquiry into the bombing of Tokyo. However insufficient sources were available to me and the sources that I had obtained were limited. I then decided to change the event of my research whilst keeping ethics the core focus of my work and so the bombing of Dresden instead, recalling that Mr Wright had mentioned it during a lesson. It was also briefly mentioned in Kevin Wilson's aforementioned book.

My research into the subject has exposed a long running argument between those that believe Dresden was a tactically feasible objective and those who think that it was immoral to bomb a city so removed from the front line.

about 20% done!

The Historical Downfall of the Nazi Moon-Base Regime, Undertaken by Lincoln and Elvis on April 28th, 2457

now that attention has been brought.

I feel that in order to study ethics I should also look into the varying casualty numbers of the bombing. They range from not much to a lot. what do you think sir?

All my posts start with an "A"

The proud people of Hamburg did not ask for sympathy or pity. They accepted that there had been some reason for the Allies to try to level the city to the ground. But for Dresden, they said, there had been no excuse at all. - Alexander Mckee

This Mckee kid is one of the historians who argues that the bombing of Dresden was ethically unsound and even goes as far as to suggest it is a war crime (obviously not in this quote).

Personally I don't think bombing Dresden is a war crime. Although it certainly wasn't the most morally uplifting part of the war.

Book Order!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have ordered A.C Grayling's book,

Among The Dead Cities: The History and Moral Legacy of the WWII Bombing of Civilians in Germany and Japan

 and should arrive between Saturday and Christmas :). I can't wait to do notes on this soon to be addition to my ever going bibliography!

After thought

Sir I reckon suggesting that either,

a) Judging history should always be done contextually and with the ideals of the time kept in focus

or

b) Context can be in a sense placed aside in order to assess the event on today's moral fibre.

should  be involved in history of ethics as the ethics suggest an opinion on the validity of one's reasons for choices and hence a judgement.

I think......

Are Ethics History?

This post is not a plea to abandon Our morale codes, rather to discuss whether they belong in historiography.

well...... according to the father of history, Herodotus, history is:
 "... putting on record the astonishing achievements .... and more particularly, how they came into conflict."
So Herodotus believes that history isn't just what happened but how it happened. Ethics is all about context and as history is the most context driven science on the planet it surely the ethics of the time must be taken into context to even begin considering it a part of history. Why must ethics be kept in a contextual sense? Because the inventor of history Leopold von Ranke says:
"To history has been assigned the office of judging the past, ..... To such high offices this work does not aspire: It  wants only to show what actually happened."