Talk:Historiography and nationalism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I have been arguing with a couple of Persian nationalists who are sure that the Elamite empire was Iranian. I collected material that wasn't related to Iran, but did speak to a general problem. So I started an article. This could probably be considerably expanded. I'm still exploring the topic myself. Zora 09:09, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

See also Historical revisionism and Historical revisionism (political) which touches on this. There is also Universal History and a number of other "philosophy of history" articles which all need to be tied together in some way, probably under Historiography. Interestingly, historiography articles are usually broken down by nation, so youd have Historiography of England etc.. Stbalbach 14:54, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)
As it is, I think this article could well be subsumed into a a subsectoin of historiography.
If folks want to merge it, I'm OK with that. Zora 23:13, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
FWIW, I think this is an important article that should be preserved as a valuable antidote to the various nationalist debates one finds scattered around Wikipedia: e.g., was Copernicus a Pole or a German; was al-Biruni Persian or Arab or Turkish. I understand the motives of national pride that lie behind those debates, but the fact that there can be such real debates indicates that national identities can be much more fluid than modern nationalists assume. --SteveMcCluskey 15:48, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Original research

This article has problems and it makes claims about "Chinese, Persians, Russians" that are not backed up with anything. Reads like a bad term paper from an ultraradical leftist. It is just original research and either doesn't belong in the Wikipedia or needs to get rid of all the junk info that has nothing to back it up. ZamfirsGhost 19:04, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

I wrote the article and I don't think I'm a leftist. I'm definitely an anti-nationalist, but I tried to keep the article neutral. How about refraining from calling me names? I'll dig up more refs. Zora 19:34, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
Calling someone a "leftist" is not an insult. But I think you're right since examining your edit history you seem nothing like a liberal but the exact opposite, which I think is even worse. My mistake. I think you should read about what Wikipedia thinks about original research and this article is a fabulous example. If the article is anti-nationalist like you, then it's not neutral is it now? And if you are anti-nationalist I think you should leave Hawaii since whites don't belong there and in fact you should leave America, the most nationalist country on earth! And leave the rest of the world alone. ZamfirsGhost 20:05, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

It's not original research; I cited many academics and even an academic conference. Please stop calling me names and insulting me. I'm not going to report you to an admin, in case you don't realize that you're doing wrong, but if you do this again, I will. You can be blocked from editing if you can't remain civil (WP:CIVIL) to other editors. Zora 22:20, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV

Sometime ago, after making some major changes, I removed the Original Research template. I have just removed the NPOV template. If anyone still thinks this article is biased, please reopen the discussion. --SteveMcCluskey 15:08, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Things to do and Sources

I've added a lot of material based on Geary's recent book. There's a lot more material out there that can be added. I know there are discussions of the rise of Celtic and Slavic nationalism in the nineteenth century, and I presume there are discussions of nationalism in the many former colonial states of Africa and Asia.

Please help. --SteveMcCluskey 15:13, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I wish I could. Did you know that I have a cubic yard of books to be read sitting by my bed? That I have hundreds of books queued in my Questia account? That I have hundreds of books on my gimmee lists at Powells and Amazon? I think my head is going to explode. Zora 13:35, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Europeans claiming Greeks as their own

I've removed the following discussion from the section where it was:

Europeans claiming as their origin Acient Greece (and marginalizing any non-Greek or non-Indo-European influences on Ancient Greece)<ref>Arvidsson 2006:50-52</ref>,

That section is concerned with cultures claiming ancestry in a vaguely defined mythological past; the passage derived from Arvidsson dealt with Europeans claiming descent from a well defined historical culture. The issue of possible Asian and African influences on Greek culture is another matter, which perhaps could be written up to fit this discussion of nationalism. --SteveMcCluskey 02:26, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

indeed, this is completely offtopic. Europeans claiming Greek cultural roots can do so independently of what might be, in turn, the roots of Greek culture. Oriental and Egyptian influence on Greek culture are widely accepted, it is just usually implied that these elements were essentially refined, acquiring a new "European" quality, in Greece itself. dab (𒁳) 09:05, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Google Books in footnotes.

I recently changed the Google Books reference to Geary, p. 15, because it didn't work properly. I suspect such links may not be permanent but may be tied to each individual search. That may be why Wikipedia:WikiProject Fact and Reference Check/Guidelines deprecates using links to specific pages.

Would someone check whether that link goes directly to p. 15; if it doesn't feel free to remove it. --SteveMcCluskey 22:35, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

User:Zora just reformatted the reference for Marc Ferro's book, removing a link to the Google Books entry, stating in her edit summary "We don't do links to google book searches". A Google Books link has been left standing further down. If you click on the title of Patrick Geary's book, it takes you to a Google Books link, and I believe that one is useful. It takes you to Google's own 'About this book' page, which offers a reasonable summary of the book. That should benefit our readers, though I admit the Google Book links do take up space.
In the case of the Geary reference, SteveMcCluskey has provided two different GB links, one that takes you to the 'About this Book' page, and a second link that takes you to page 15, which is where the main Geary quote (included at the top of this article) comes from. I did not find that the links were tied to each individual search (which was a concern of Steve's); I found that they took you consistently to the right place. So on balance I'm in favor of including the GB link, though maybe one link per book rather than two because of the space issue. EdJohnston 04:35, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Dang, I simply didn't notice those. It's not me inventing this, I've seen this repeated elsewhere. Basically, we don't want to link to search results. They're not necessarily stable links. Zora 05:04, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I think you're mistaken in calling these 'links to search results'. Here is the full text of one of the Google Books links: http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN0691114811
Notice that this pointer includes the ISBN of the book. This is just as stable as a Worldcat pointer, and probably more stable than a link to a Wikipedia article. No search is involved in returning the result to you. The only uncertainty is whether Google will change its 'About this book' writeup over time. But we already include many links to web sites where the linked-to words are not 100% certain to stay fixed over time. What this is giving you is something like a link to the dust-jacket copy of the book, possibly a little better quality, because it doesn't sound like marketing (at least, not in this case). EdJohnston 20:46, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
More background: the rule that I believe Zora has in mind is this one (from WP:EL, under 'Links normally to be avoided': #9. Links to search engine results pages. As noted above I'm arguing that a fully-qualified GB reference does not return a 'search engine results page'. EdJohnston 20:57, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
Further, it's a commercial book. Just use the normal ISBN link (ISBN 0691114811)- that will direct the user to an internal Wikipedia page where they have the option to find the book from multiple external sites, including Google Books, Amazon, etc.. -- Stbalbach 14:02, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, if using in a footnote, then Google Books is fine since it can be used for verification. -- Stbalbach 14:55, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Linking to Google Books is fine if you know what you're doing. See related discussion. Ekantik talk 04:05, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] demi-paradise

The eighteenth and nineteenth century saw the resurgence of national ideologies. During the French revolution a national identity was crafted, identifying the common people with the Gauls.

Really? What about England and Scotland. It seems that nationalism was alive an kicking long before the French thought of it.

for, as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule. It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom – for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself.(Declaration of Arbroath 1320)
This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-paradise, This fortress built by Nature for herself Against infection and the hand of war, This happy breed of men, this little world, This precious stone set in the silver sea, Which serves it in the office of a wall, Or as a moat defensive to a house, Against the envy of less happier lands, This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England, (Shakespeare Richard II 1595)

--Philip Baird Shearer 21:21, 22 February 2007 (UTC)