Talk:James Broun-Ramsay, 1st Marquess of Dalhousie

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I've just made a few minor grammatical and stylistic corrections to the first part of the article (whose rathe purple prose could do with a thorough bleaching), but there's one point at which I was stymied. He's supposed to have "aggravated the crisis by his overbearing self-consciousness", but this doesn't really make sense. My problem is that I don't know what the writer meant to write instead of "self-consciousness" — arrogance? self-centredness? selfishness? or what?
Oh, and was he born at or in Dalhousie Castle? Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 22:37, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

self-confidence, I would imagine. I would also guess that he was born in Dalhousie Castle, but who knows. In terms of the prose, it's copied from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica. So that explains that. john k 23:59, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I think that's all right; I've made the changes. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 09:56, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Adraeus

Regardless of your grammatical preferences, it's a title, and it has a hyphen. GGoC is the exception, not the rule. Try reading about the subject before making pronouncements on it. You could start here: Governor-General. Proteus (Talk) 12:05, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Coverage of his time in India needs to be totally rewritten

The quality of this page is very low. There is too much one-sided defense of Dalhousie and his conduct during the Indian Mutiny. The accounts of his wars of expansion in India are all biased. Those wars were controversial even at the time. the accounts presented on the page read like a pro-war political manefesto. Dalhousie led the Company in India to Financial ruin through his wars of expansion and then nearly lost everything because of his conduct during the mutiny. I can think of few (if any) people who would agree with the page that he was some sort of far-sighted great leader vindicated by history.

That is your opinion to which you are entitled. However, the history books present a different story, largely echoed here. Wikipedia is not set up to rewrite history according to the contempory nationalist movements in various countries, nor should it be a vehicle for history judged by 21st century yardsticks rather than those of the time. It is to those historians we must look to get a grasp of how the individual is judged. Not by us, today. David Lauder 18:24, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
History is nothing but the opinion of people of that time. I agree that we should not judge history through the prism of a later period. However, in this case, the references used are only British and no counter opinions (of the people from the same period in India or elsewhere) are offered. This makes the piece totally biased. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.92.147.164 (talk) 20:53, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism Alert

User 82.110.219.204 has made edits to this article (→Second Anglo-Sikh War) which may be vandalism. A knowledgeable editor should review the history to determine if those changes are factually correct. NThurston 20:10, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Out of Date and biased

The article needs to be rewritten, the text in the article comes directly from the 1911 edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica. This was written at a time when the British empire was at it's height, as a consequence it is full of bias. Pahari Sahib 11:53, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

We are not here to rewrite history. If you feel something as splendid as the Encyclopaedia Britannica was in 1911 is biased then that is rather sad. If you wish to present rewritten history (and there is plenty of it about today) then you should possibly find another forum? David Lauder 18:27, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
There is need for me to find another forum, and it is not a question of "rewriting history" simply that the article needs to be brought up to date, the Encyclopaedia Britannica good as it is - does contain bias, this is noted in Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition#1911 Britannica in the 21st century. The article in its original version is here wikisource:1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/James Andrew Broun Ramsay Dalhousie. As long as the article has a NPOV then fine. Pahari Sahib @13:43, 15 August 2007 (GMT)
Fascinating. Just how do you "bring history up to date"? It sounds to me as though it is you who wishes to introduce a point of view. David Lauder 13:49, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
My point is simply that the article needs to be brought up to date, for instance it describes his wife as "a lady of gentle lineage and distinguished gifts" and of his mother "while to his mother he owed his high-bred courtesy", do you see what I mean. These words "gentle lineage" and "high-bred", this is the point of view of the author who wrote the Encyclopaedia Britannica article. Good as the Encyclopaedia Britannica is, it does contain out of date ideas and expressions. Pahari Sahib @16:43, 15 August 2007 (GMT)