Mother Jones Best Books of 2013

Dave Gilson of Mother Jones explains why Napalm is one of the magazine's Best Books of 2013:

In the era of drone strikes, Napalm is a timely look at what it means to (literally) rain death from above. Developed at Harvard during World War II, napalm was explicitly designed to destroy civilian targets: It was even tested on mock-ups of German and Japanese houses. The horrific firebombing of Japan and the use of napalm in Vietnam figure prominently, but the book also details lesser-known uses of the weapon in Korea and Iraq (where the US military insisted its "firebombs" were different than napalm). An excellent and disturbing history of a weapon that's synonymous with the horror of modern warfare.

Click here for the complete list of Mother Jones magazine's Best Books of 2013.