In this hard-hitting, thoroughly researched, and crisply argued book, award-winning historian Robert P. Newman offers a fresh perspective on the dispute over President Truman's decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan in World War II. Newman's argument centers on the controversy that erupted around the National Air and Space Museum's (NASM) exhibit of Enola Gay in 1995. Newman explores the tremendous challenges that NASM faced when trying to construct a narrative that would satisfy American veterans and the Japanese, as well as accurately reflect the current historical research on both the period and the bomb. His full-scale investigation of the historical dispute results in a compelling story of how and why our views about the bombing of Japan have evolved since its occurrence. "Enola Gay and the Court of History is compulsory reading for all those interested in the history of the Pacific war, the morality of war, and the failed NASM exhibition. The book offers the final word on the debate over Truman's decision to drop the bomb.

The controversy started almost the moment the atomic bomb dropped by the Enola Gay exploded over Hiroshima, killing eighty thousand mostly civilian Japanese. At first the objections came from moralists, condemning the bomb as inherently evil.

By July 1946, with the issuance of Paul Nitze's seemingly authoritative Strategic Bombing Survey, however, President Truman's motives for ordering the A-bomb attacks came under fire. This smoldering historical controversy finally burst into public prominence as World War II Air Force veterans rose up to protest the condemnatory tone of the planned Smithsonian exhibit of the Enola Gay at the National Air and Space Museum.