Using the case of the Enola Gay exhibit, historian Paul Boyer examines why historians have become the antagonists in the current culture of American patriotism. Americans have always had troubled processing the Hiroshima-Nagasaki bombings because the terrible events spoil the narrative of America’s World War II effort as the “Good War.” Until the atomic bombs were dropped on Japan, Americans could unabashedly think of themselves as heroes who saved the Allies from evil Axis powers. However, the devastation caused by the Hiroshima-Nagasaki bombings was an uncomfortable truth that muddied the waters. The tendency therefore became to ignore the horrifying aspect of the American war effort in Japan, using selective memory and cherry-picked facts to recount history.

President Truman initially presented the narrative that the bombing saved many American lives; however, as Japan became an ally of the United States after the war, the narrative now shifted to the bomb saving many Japanese lives. Had the bombs not been dropped, many more Japanese would have been killed in the American invasion necessary to end the war. The official line was soon picked up by the public as well. Several films and articles continued to offer a sugar-coated version of history. Despite all these efforts, a “counter hegemonic discourse” existed from the very beginning, with many historians, philosophers, religious leaders, and ordinary Americans troubled by the moral implications of nuclear weapons. Many critics saw the dropping of the bomb as the technological culmination of the practice of strategic bombing, the bombing of civilians for war gains. These two narratives continued to clash through the 1940s to the 1980s. For many, the bombings became a global emblem that nuclear war needed to be avoided at all costs.

Historians began to publish scholarly works exploring the reasons for the bombings from 1960 onward. In 1965, historian Gar Alperovitz’s Atomic Diplomacy asked critical questions that had not been asked publicly before, such as “Why the rush to deploy the new weapon when leaders of Tokyo’s wartime government were urgently signaling a desire to end the fighting?” The investigations of Alperovitz and other historians showed that Truman was pressured to release the bombs because millions of dollars had been spent on developing them. Other historians explored the role of racist hatred in the bombings. Alperovitz also examined the role of the Soviet factor in the bombings, suggesting that Truman and his advisers dropped the bomb to display America’s might to an increasingly hostile Soviet Union. Meanwhile, the field of history itself was being transformed by new methodological approaches and new areas of research. While older historiography had focused on political and social elites, new social history also took into account the experiences of the underclass and was inclusive of their points of view. Thus, it was more critical of the actions of leaders, army generals, and politicians.

These new historical narratives fed into a growing anti-war movement, which gained speed in light of the Vietnam War. Yet, for ordinary Americans these nuanced debates seemed far-fetched and removed from their day-to-day lives. Weaponizing this apathy, conservative critics began to argue that the questioning historical narratives were revisionist and anti-American. It is easy to decode why the public accepted the position of the conservatives: the position was straightforward and simple. The narrative that the atomic bomb served a greater good, and historians were trying to sully American history, was easy to absorb. Meanwhile, the perspective of the historians was complex, attributing the bombings to many different factors, some evolving. The complexity of factors is the very nature of informed historical assessment, which involves constant study and critical engagement....