Culture | The inferno

The destruction of Dresden, the “Florence of the Elbe”

A compassionate new history of an infamous Allied bombing raid

After the fire

The Fire and the Darkness: The Bombing of Dresden, 1945. By Sinclair McKay. St Martin’s Press; 400 pages; $32.50. Published in Britain as “Dresden: The Fire and the Darkness”; Viking; £20.

This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline “The inferno”

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