The Enola Gay Controversy

Historians face many difficulties in their drive to put together the pieces of the past. Two of these problems are hagiography and presentism. These two issues are one of the factors that led to the controversy over the Enola Gay exhibit, and its eventual cancellation. Hagiography is the tendency to glorify an event, as a sort of worship. It seems that the Air Force Association, some Veterans' groups and some members of the United states …

…the Enola Gay of presentism. David Thelen explains: "The debate over the Enola Gay exhibition brought to the surface an even more fundamental issue: What is or ought to be the relationship between what happened in the past and how we interpret and present history in the present?" This sums up the whole issue, do we view history the way we grew up with it, or do we add to history as we learn more?