Decades later, John Hersey used the same techniques of re-creation for his epic Hiroshima , perhaps the best book of reportage ever written. As is the case with any collection, readers can and do differ about the selections. I would not have used any of Steinbeck's Once There Was a War , his World War II reportage. Steinbeck's reportage was no better than pedestrian, and he later admitted many of the techniques he used in writing for The New York Herald Tribune were suspect ethically. Once There Was a War is one of his least reprinted books and for good reason.
Literary nonfiction is neither an oxymoron nor dead.
In this age of television and visual culture, the written word is still doing very well, and reportage is doing very well indeed. Thomas Fensch is the author or editor of 16 books of nonfiction. The Man, the Book, the Film, the Holocaust and Its Survivors . He is on the faculty of Sam Houston State University, Huntsville.