The book follows the Bomber Mafia, especially Major General Haywood S. Hansell, and the development of a high-altitude precision aerial bombardment strategy in World War II as a means to limit casualties.

[1][2][3] In 2016, Gladwell started Revisionist History, a history-focused podcast that "re-examines something from the past – an event, a person, an idea, even a song – and asks whether we got it right the first time".

[4] He devoted four episodes of the fifth season of Revisionist History to air power in World War II, and stated the audiobook served as an expansion of material from the podcast.

[9] When the United States entered World War II, the Bomber Mafia's doctrine proved of little military use and costly in implementation with the realities of current technology under real-world combat conditions.

[10] This especially applied with the aerial bombardment of Japan where previously unaccounted atmospheric conditions such as the jet stream seriously interfered with operations under Hansell's command.

[17] In The Wall Street Journal, Yale professor Paul Kennedy praised the audiobook version of The Bomber Mafia as "remarkable" and a "work of art"; similarly, in The Times, reviewer Gerard DeGroot said "The Bomber Mafia remind[ed] [him] of a really good podcast – a fascinating story is appealingly delivered", and historian Diana Preston of The Washington Post called the audiobook "innovative" for its inclusion of archival clips, music, and sound effects.

[19] Publishers Weekly stated "this history feels more tossed off than fully fledged", though Gladwell "provide[d] plenty of colorful details and pose[d] intriguing questions about the morality of warfare".

[23] Writing for The Baffler, Noah Kulwin criticized the book as "an attempt to retcon the history of American aerial warfare by arguing that developing the capacity to explode anything, anywhere in the world has made America and, indeed, the rest of the globe, unequivocally safer" and stated "by taking up military history, Gladwell's half-witted didacticism threatens to convince millions of people that the only solution to American butchery is to continue shelling out for sharper and larger knives.