Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/History of West Eurasia

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus to delete. A conversation about merging and renaming can happen on the article talk page. Certainly the article seems redundant with other history articles, but that's easily dealt with. Chick Bowen 03:35, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] History of West Eurasia

History of West Eurasia (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

West Eurasia is not a notable geographic nomenclature, and does not even have an article in Wikipedia

I would like to add that much of this content is lovely, and therefore could and should be merged into other articles with recognized geographic titles. Libertyvalley 20:27, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Merging is appropriate for case where a small article could form a section in another more general article. It is not appropriate for a case like this where a general article would have to be split up into more specific articles. Unraveling it would be a nightmare. The real options are keep or delete.Dejvid 08:41, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep I suggest you merge and then afd, at present the articles is excellent and well sourced but if the material were merged into other articles but not removed from the encyclopedia I would reconsider, SqueakBox 20:28, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
How do you define "well sourced"? There are 8 reference notes, 7 of which point to the same author. Also, I know there is a tool where you can graphically see which editors have contributed the most to an article. I'd like to see that for this article. It appears 90%+ of the content has been installed by one Wikipedia editor. He also helped to "define" West Eurasia in the Simple English Wikipedia article about Eurasia. Isn't that clearly someone pushing a POV, which has little basis in fact? "West Eurasia" is not a notable way of defining any of the parts of the world claimed included in this article. Libertyvalley 20:42, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
I believe User:Libertyvalley refers to the Wikidashboard from the Palo Alto Research Center, and in User:Dejvid's defense, he has "only" made 75% of the edits on the article. Not that that's not showing WP:OWN, either. Yeeesh. Hilarity Clinton 01:34, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
    • The entire article (all 36kb of it, and it appears to be well-written) cites ONE BOOK that uses this term. I'm sorry, but that simply doesn't qualify as "well sourced" in my book. I have to do more research before I give my opinion, but there's something missing here, and the prettiest prose in the world can't cover it up. —bbatsell ¿? ✍ 20:42, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm not even so sure that McEvedy ever used the term "West Eurasia"! Libertyvalley 20:54, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
He uses the term Europe-Near East Area. By all means propose a move if it is the tittle you object to.Dejvid 21:18, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep McEvedy's atlas's sell well and I don't feel additional sources are needed to establish the notability of the region he based his atlases on. The arguments that he put in favor of the Arctic, Atlantic, Sahara, Indian Ocean, Hindu Kush making the region sufficiently isolated to justify treating its history separately are IMO strong and I recommend people reading the intro of either his (New) Penguin Atlas of Medieval History or the Ancient one before making their mind up. I'm not sure whether merging the content into other pages (History of Europe, History of the Mediterranean region, History of Asia etc) is workable. While I personally would like to see it continue to the present day there are arguments for saying with the discovery of the Atlantic route to America etc the region became far less distinct Dejvid 21:11, 15 October 2007 (UTC) The article combines some of the most notable events in history into a continuous story. It lends itself to a treatment that is verifiable and avoids original research (those two are the real basis of notability concerns).Dejvid 09:35, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Rename or Delete I think many of us do object to the ridiculous title, which seems peculiar to the Penguin Atlas. Although the Eurasian landmass would, technically, cover all of Europe and all of Asia, this version of Eurasia includes North Africa, but for whatever reason, Africa gets left out of the name. Non-Penguins seem to describe this as the "Mediterranean area". Mandsford 21:29, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
    • Comment I would not object to a renaming depending on what the new name were but that could (should?) have been either done or discussed on the talk page before bringing to afd, its the content deletion I object to, SqueakBox 21:41, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
Did you even bother to read the objections raised by User:John5Russell3Finley on the article's talk page before making your objection? It would seem that this very point was raised months ago, in February 2007. User:Dejvid seemed to begin to agree that the naming convention could and should be reworked, but then he continued on with the existing, and seemingly very incongruous, naming convention. His mistake is not Wikipedia's reason to carry on with this mistake in such dramatic form. He is the author of most of the content, it should be his responsibility to merge it where possible [with existing regional articles. There is barely a thread of academic agreement that "West Eurasia" constitutes a thematic geography. Please, tell us, how often in the course of history have people from Lithuania interacted with people from Egypt? People from Portugal with people from the shores of the Caspian Sea? This is a discredited way of amalgamating land masses, and I think the continued discussion here will bear that out. I may invite some members of the Geography community to weigh in on this, if their insight would be respected. Enjoyexist 01:15, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
How ofter has Lithuania interacted with Portugal? Yet we have a history of Europe page. On the other hand neither the Carthaginians or the Arabs found much problem crossing from Africa to Spain not the German Vandals in the other direction. Did Richard the first of England bother much about crossing into a different continent? I continued with the current name because I didn't think the proposed alternative was better. If you believe there is a better name by all means propose it.Dejvid 08:28, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep That Europe, Western Asia and North Africa constitute a distinct geographical and historical entity is a notable concept, used by, among others, Jared Diamond in Guns, Germs, and Steel and Collapse--victor falk 22:08, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Merge what is salvageable, or just Delete. There is no indication that Jared Diamond used the term "West Eurasia" in Guns, Germs, and Steel or in Collapse. He used the term "western Eurasia" as an identifier (not a place name) only once -- in the index. These are really weak (and erroneous) defenses of a completely misnamed article. It might as well say "History of the Lands Northwest of the Indian Ocean". There are already articles about History of Europe, History of North Africa, and History of the Middle East -- all of which are common, accepted geographic place-names. Why would we confound the average Wikipedia reader with this practically imaginary location of "West Eurasia"? Per nominator, there isn't even a Wikipedia article about West Eurasia! Enjoyexist 00:58, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
  • I said "concept", not "term". Have you read those books?--victor falk 23:01, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
Diamond doesn't just use western Eurasia in the index see here —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dejvid (talk • contribs) 16:58, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
Here is another use of western Eurasia in the sense used in the articleThe first great divergence : China and Europe, 500-800 CE. This article is not a one off but intended to initiate a seminar the first part of which invoves inviting "four leading regional experts – two focusing on Eastern Eurasia and two on Western – to Stanford" It really isn't difficult to find refs for use of the concept in academic circlesDejvid 17:13, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep or Rename in response to SqueakBox—Europe sounds just fine. —  $PЯINGεrαgђ  00:39, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete if this is an example of "excellent" material: During this period of Roman expansionism arqueological evidence points ou to a great increase of the volume of trade in the Mediterranean sea, with increased by 200% to 300%, from the 3th century Bc to the 1st century. This appears to indicate that the political unification of the Mediterranean sea estimulated economic progress. Please, make it stop. Datagoal 01:55, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
If you check the history you will find that the editor is not a native speaker of English - the point he is trying to make is valid. Deletion seems an odd response.Dejvid 09:36, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
Your use of the phrase "the editor" suggests a WP:OWN problem here. This is not "your" article. Datagoal 19:37, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
Please reread what I wrote. It wasn't my edit. "The editor" refers to the person who made the edit complained about. I think you were being a little tough on him that's all.Dejvid 19:45, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Merge this article with Ecumene This thing is simply an attempt to find a better way of translating the greek word than "known world", but falls flat with the title, since if it is not part of Europe or Asia you really can't just annex it to a thing called "WesternEurasia" and still have the concept work properly, it takes too much explantion and makes folks like me want to pull their hair out.John5Russell3Finley 14:53, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Personally I'd be happy if the page was merged into Ecumene -it would keep it intact. However, I'm less sure that those working on that page would be happy with all 34 k being merged into that page. The key problem is that Ecumene can have several meanings and the History of West Eurasia page takes as its focus only one of those definitions.Dejvid 22:39, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Coment Almost all of the objections to this page concern the notability of the term used in the tittle. It is not, however, the notability of tittle that needs to be established but of the topic, that is, of the focus of the article. This page takes its focus strictly from Colin McEvedy's atlases. It was those atlases dealing with the Europe-Near East that his reputation was based on. No he doesn't use the term West Eurasia. None of us who are voting "keep" have any hang ups about the term. If the term is the problem let it be History of Europe and the Near East which is how McEvedy describes the area. McEvedy, in his introductions, puts forward arguments in favor of his focus. He is by no means alone in making this area their focus. I read Peter Heather's The Fall of the Roman Empire as background for this article. It covers both Germany and North Africa, Persia and Spain, along with the European Steppes, the Balkans Italy and Gaul. Pretty much he covers the entire geographical area of this article even though that wasn't his aim. That's because that focus comes from hard geographical facts on the ground. Please would those voting merge/delete look beyond the term and unprejudiced look at the topic of the article.Dejvid 14:58, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
You're digging this article's own grave, Dejvid. Clearly, you are treating Wikipedia as some sort of personal "book review" space, which we believe Wikipedia is not. An article of this length shouldn't be based on the work of two authors (McEvedy and Heather), as interpreted by one editor (Dejvid) for 75% of the article's edits. Especially when the content of the article is mostly redundant with content at more frequently edited venues like History of Europe, History of North Africa, and History of the Middle East, it is showing understandable but unfortunate bad judgment to recommend yet another location called History of Europe and the Near East. No, the objections to this article are not centered on its "tittle" (sic). Datagoal 19:35, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
At least I now understand the disagreement. The value of all those pages, to me, are that they provide overviews. All of those pages have information that exists on other pages. Their value is that these pages allow you to step back a bit and show the whole jigsaw instead of the individual pieces. It is especially valuable for something like wikipedia because it allows users, having seen the bigger picture, home into more detailed pages that catch their interest. This, incidentally, has got nothing to do with any book review. it is just that both McEvedy and Heather find the focus of the article useful. Almost all the regions mentioned only have value if they useful in organizing events. The exception being History of Europe and that is precisely because it is sufficiently "imagined" to have the power to be the basis of the EU. None of the others have much reality in the real world. Their value depends on the basic need to cut up information into digestible chunks. You assume that people are interested in some entity and then think that they would like know the history of it. My starting point is to assume that people are interested in history for itself and history, by its nature, only makes sense if you can see the connections. Both types of people exist. Wikipedia should cater for both.
BTW how many authors that write using the focus of this page do you require?Dejvid 22:35, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
Phoo-whee... this is getting long-winded. Obviously, there is no "requirement" for a certain number of authors or academics to embrace a certain construct for it to be valid in Wikipedia. What people are saying is that if only a couple of authors have ever gathered up the Near East, North Africa, and Greater Europe (to the exclusion of sub-Saharan Africa, East Asia, the Indian subcontinent, and even North America) into a theoretical construct for discussion, then there's little reason for Wikipedia to devote nearly this much space to such a flimsy arrangement. Articles have formed around the smaller jigsaw pieces, because that is how people have mentally constructed these smaller regions for many centuries. The notion of aggregating "West Eurasia" is apparently an avant-garde movement, and as such, it merits perhaps a paragraph or two, not this meandering treatise. This article is headed for Delete, that much is clear. Datagoal 16:24, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
It's not an "avant garde movement", it's just an overview article to give a convenient perspective on the history of Europe, Western Asia, the Middle East and North Africa in a single place.--victor falk 22:35, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
Great, then Wikipedia should look forward to similar articles about the history of Australia and South America, about North America and Scandinavia, and about Mongolia, Manchuria, Korea, Japan, and the Hawaiian Islands? Wikipedia will be much improved to have those overview articles to give a convenient perspective in a single place. Datagoal 03:25, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
You don't have to look forward, you can already go and enjoy reading history of East Asia for learning about Mongolia, Manchuria, Korea and Japan. That's because they constitute a geohistorical area, like western Eurasia, and unlike Scandinavia, Australia and America.--victor falk 03:38, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Rename to history of western Eurasia. Note the non-capital "w". Searches with "western Eurasia" yields also considerably more material about the subject.--victor falk 05:08, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep, possibly Rename. There is ample evidence for historical, cultural, trade, migratory, epidemiological, geopolitical, and other mass-population interactions between Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and also the West Asian steppes. An article giving a framing overview of these interactions and inter-dependencies is of value; and the subject has clearly attracted enough academic publication to satisfy WP:Notability. History of western Eurasia, as recently suggested, might be a slightly better title. Possibly, still better titles could also be found. Jheald 23:35, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
So, is everyone agreed that North Africa (note, on the continent of Africa) is certainly a part of "western Eurasia" (Eurasia being the continents of Europe and Asia, but not Africa). Thus, Eurasia does not include any of Africa, but western Eurasia will be defined to include North Africa. This is a correct resolution to the problem? - Areateeth 17:58, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
I think it is more that the use of western Eurasia to include north Africa is most common among historians. It isn't an exact term. If an historian is talking about trade or are concerned with political integration then they are likely to have in mind a region that includes north Africa. In some other contexts this would be a far less safe an assumption. On the other hand, some historians will take the focus of study that the current article does while describing the region with a different term. That the concept is used in academic circles can be supported better than an exact definition. Dejvid 19:33, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
Thought - it might make those opponents of the page a little less concerned if the intro made it clear that the page was using a definition rather than the definition.Dejvid 19:38, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
Better thought -- Take a look at a Google search for "'western eurasia' 'north africa'", which yields over 9,000 hits. Then, take away the word Wikipedia, watch 8,000 of those hits disappear. Some pages left behind seem to tie in with seismic studies of the Earth's mantle. So, take away those. What are we left with? Seems like examinations of pre-historic migrations, species of small mice, Pleistocene skulls, migration of air-breathing fishes, and bryophytes. To me, it would seem there is very little historical discussion of "western Eurasia" as it includes "North Africa", outside of Wikipedia. - Areateeth 02:13, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
Raw Google searches are difficult to interpret for this case if you want to determine the frequency of a specific definitions. For example [www.esteri.it/mae/doc_dossier/dossier_euromed/mediterraneo_en.pdf this link] doesn't mention north Africa but clearly conceives western Eurasia as including the southern shores of the Med. In any case the topic of the page is the History of the Region and not on how west/western Eurasia should be defined. The topic of the article is the history of a very large and significant region of the world. As such its contents are indisputably notable and (more important) highly verifiable. Whether Carthage lies in Western Eurasia or not will depend on the working definition of the author concerned but it is easy to check that it was destroyed by the Romans in 146 BCE. That verifiability is the essence of notability.Dejvid 14:01, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
So, would I be at liberty to create a new article entitled History of northern Indochina, and include the histories of Hainan, Macao, and Hong Kong in that article, being that there are commercial and topographical links between Hainan, Macao, and Hong Kong and the northern portions of Indochina? How would this be helping the encyclopedia? By the way, the link you provide to the Italian paper is highly charged politically and even states, "global Mediterranean security is a concept equal to that of European security". I should think that those cultures located on the southern shores of the Mediterranean would object to being claimed as part of the European security system. If that paper is the best support for this concept, then it's even more clear that this article contains unwanted POV in a supposedly NPOV encyclopedia. - Areateeth 14:50, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
Unlike the other refs I've given which were academic, that link was political. However, when the Italian ministry of foreign affairs starts using the term it is clearly notable. "global Mediterranean security is a concept equal to that of European security" is indeed a POV statement. I don't think it means what you take it to mean nor do I think you can assume that everyone south of the med would be offended by but that is irrelevant to whether this page should be kept - it is clearly off topic for such an article. (As an aside, NPOV does not exclude POVs provided they are sourced explained in a neutral way and significant counter POVs are also given space).Dejvid 20:41, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep as well-sourced start of an article. No great by any sense, but a good start. Am I missing some POV? Bearian 21:26, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Refs cited These are almost all cited above but brought together in one place for sake of readability:

  • The first great divergence : China and Europe, 500-800 CE (uses term western Eurasia to mean the area that is the focus of article)
  • The divergent evolution of coinage in eastern and western Eurasia
  • [www.esteri.it/mae/doc_dossier/dossier_euromed/mediterraneo_en.pdf] Italy and Euro-Mediteranian] (uses term western Eurasia to mean the area that is the focus of article)
  • Thompson, William R. 1999. “The Military Superiority Thesis and he Ascendancy of Western Eurasia in the World System.” Journal of World History 10:143–178.
  • The New Penguin Atlas of Ancient History,(+ Medieval +two later ones) Colin McEvedy Gives reasons why the area as a sutible focus for historical study though he doesn't use the term West Eurasia
  • Jared Diamond in Guns, Germs, and Steel Does use western Eurasia in the text despite what was stated above.
  • The Fall of the Roman Empire: Peter Heather (not really a strong ref but an example of how authors end up taking the geographical focus of article because of the logic of the geography)Dejvid 22:22, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.