Beware, the Historian! Hiroshima, the Enola Gay, and theDangers of History

Michael J. Hogan, ed., Hiroshima in History and Memory. Edward T. Linenthal and Tom engelhardt, eds., History wars: The Enola Gay and Other Battles for the American Post. In 1927 Charles A. Lindbergh became the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. His silver-winged monoplane, The Spirit of St. Louis, subsequently became the prime exhibit when the National Air and Space Museum (NASM) opened. Visitors gazed at this small craft hanging from the ceiling and marveled at Lindbergh's solitary achievement. But if the fact of Lindbergh's accomplishment seemed clear, its meaning remained debatable. In an intriguing assessment of the reaction to Lindbergh's flight, historian John William Ward observed that Americans who hailed him celebrated both the flier's solitary achievement and the technological prowess that made the flight possible. Citizens simultaneously looked back toward their simpler, mythic past, even as they looked forward to a more complex, interdependent, and technological future.1

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