Different preppies listened to different things. I don't remember the cliched "preppie handbook" really pushing one thing or another. The Grateful Dead was very popular in prep schools as was punk and new wave, but I seem to remember "preppie" people usually listening to the same sort of music as everyone else, although usually avoiding music they saw as lower class pop, unless of course it was old enough lower class music to be seen as quaint.
So metal wasn't popular, but Jazz might be. Preppie was mostly just a BS term for people seen as social climbers.
I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.