I’m currently reading The Guns Of August by Barbara Tuchman, about the run-up to WWI. It’s fascinating reading — more compelling, as a back-cover blurb says, than fiction — and brilliantly written. To understand just how much of war, and so much of subsequent twentieth-century history, rests on nuances of a general’s personality or on pettiness of politicians…it’s frightening and humanizing at once.

After this I think I’ll re-read A Short History Of WWI by Jim Stokesbury (to cover the bulk of the war itself) and then Paris 1919 by Margaret MacMillan. Then I have to find a WWII equivalent of The Guns Of August; I find the buildup to war the most interesting facet.

The afore-mentioned Jim Stokesbury was my uncle; a writer and professor of history at Acadia University, husband to my father’s sister, he died over a decade ago following an car accident. I was in university at the time, barely 20 years old. As time goes by I miss him more and more.

I’d only see him once a year, usually; on Boxing Day my father’s side of the family has a reunion, at which the routine is always the same: arrive, catch up with relatives, eat a great deal, and finally play Trivial Pursuit. Jim, being a history professor and a smart man in general, was fearsome at the game; being a sharp wit, he was equally fearsome if he set his mind to teasing you. I never thought of any of my aunts or uncles as being my “favourites”, but I suppose had I he would have been one. He made several model airplanes (building them was his hobby) for me when I was younger, his beautiful house overlooking the Annapolis Valley was always fun to visit, and he was always quick with a dry quip. Even as a kid I admired his mind; most of my childhood was spent trying to be as smart as my brothers and my parents, but for one day a year I’d want desperately to be as smart as my uncle Jim.

Now, as I read The Guns Of August, written in a readable style which surely informed my uncle’s, I find myself missing him more than ever. I want to email him and trade snarky comments about Joffre, or ask him whether the hunt for the Goeben really shaped Middle Eastern events for the next 90 years. I want to see my dad open his latest book on Christmas morning. I want to beat him at Trivial Pursuit.

Now, nearly twelve years after his death, I’d settle for a dry quip.

[tags]the guns of august, paris 1919, james stokesbury[/tags]