"Heffernan must therefore take a more daring approach. He directs his argument not to readers of literature but to historians. Brazenly he trespasses into their territory, their cleared jungles and straightened rivers, as an emissary from the shadowy realm of make-believe who dares to suggest that their scrupulous volumes, no matter how impressively researched or dramatically written, cannot match the honesty of fiction, poetry, or theater. “Histories tell us much…about the origins of World War II,” he writes. “But the literary works…examined in this book tell us even more.”"

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2023/12/21/writing-under-fire-politics-and-literature-at-the-dawn-of-world-war-ii/