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For better or for worse, I've been obsessed with war writing the last few weeks.

I interviewed soldier and memoirist Jason Christopher Hartley last week, and I recently participated in Ed Champion's roundtable discussion of Nicholson Baker’s Human Smoke.

This nonfiction book explores the build-up to World War II in intricate detail, challenging countless preconceived notions about how that terrible conflict began.

It's a great exercise for any writer, the chance to explore the rubbish bin of history, pulling out all the stories that historians tossed over the years. Today's installment includes the great writers Sarah Weinman, Levi Asher, and Brian Francis Slattery.

If you're looking for a little bit of historical context or inspiration for a new project, you need to check out this week-long roundtable.

"The issue of responsibility — whether the so-called “good Germans” should be castigated because they couldn’t prevent this from happening — has long been an issue taken up by second-generation Holocaust historians. (Goldhagen’s Hitler’s Willing Executioners comes to mind.) But I was fascinated by the ways Baker pins this on political ideologies. He doesn’t outright blame people. He seems to suggest ... that an intellectual environment of hindering, restricting, and junking certain opinions led the world down this road."