PositiveThe Times Literary Supplement (UK)...historians, journalists and television producers have returned to the Dresden firestorm time and again ... So, faced with the appearance of Sinclair McKay’s Dresden: The fire and the darkness, it is legitimate to ask what contribution it makes to the debate. The answer is that it is an impressive, elegiac popular history that adds plenty of colour to the existing picture, without materially advancing the scholarship ... The book’s strength lies in its sheer readability, and in McKay’s work in local archives. This has produced some fascinating material ... The book is weaker on the broader context ... Any serious study of Dresden must grapple with issues of morality ... but one can understand [McKay\'s] desire to avoid wading too deeply into highly complex moral judgements.
