You can find Tom Sawyer to have so much value but in the end it's just a stack of papers. Meaning: Intelligence is recognition. While we can reason and explain, in the end all it is are sounds and words without meaning.
To say war is primitive and reason is upgraded is to assume everything is rational.
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.