Hersey suggested that "there are several reasons why my work has not been written about more than it has. Leaving the issue of quality, or lack of it, aside for the moment, one fundamental reason, I would guess, is that I have always written against the grain, both of literary fashion and of establishment values." As early as 1949 he called his type of fiction "the novel of contemporary history," that is, "a specific genre: the novels which deal with contemporary events." They are, he says, part of the larger mode of the historical novel. In contrast to more avant-garde writers Hersey dedicated himself to the goal of chronicling the events and issues of his time, ranging from World War II itself, the atomic bomb, and the Holocaust to the dominant social issues of the postwar decades-such as racism, overpopulation, education, the generation gap, the attack on democratic institutions, and, more generally, the malaise of modern life.
Hersey's political ideology was related to his. concept of his role as a writer. "I don't think of myself as a traditional American liberal," he wrote. "I'm not given to compromise.
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