Reconstructs the events culminating in the momentous flight of the B-29 Enola Gay which dropped the world's first atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Includes bibliographical references (pages 310-318) and index. 327 pages, 11 unnumbered leaves of plates : illustrations ; 24 cm

A national frenzy, fanned by lobbyists and the media, thwarted the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum's attempt to mount an exhibition featuring the Enola Gay, the B-29 bomber that had dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Martin Harwit, the director of the museum at the time, recounts the decade-long effort to restore the Enola Gay, the largest restoration project ever undertaken by the museum; recalls ...

"From the "taming of the West" to the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, the portrayal of the past has become a battleground at the heart of American politics. What kind of history Americans should read, see, or fund is no longer merely a matter of professional interest to teachers, historians, and museum curators. Everywhere now, history is increasingly being held hostage, but to what end and ...

Ed Yoder's exploration of the centrality of history in our lives blends an experienced journalist's zest for current trends with a lifelong interest in American and European history. In this book of linked essays, he writes about topics as diverse as the 1995 controversy over the Enola Gay exhibit at the Air and Space Museum in Washington, Barbara Tuchman's success as a popular historian, the historical ...