Talk:Nihon Ōdai Ichiran

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Japan To-do:

[edit] "Further reading" Um.. what?

I've noticed over the past week or two that a user (User:Ooperhoofd) has been putting what appears to be a completely random old French source into every single Samurai article they can find - see here for an example - he seems pretty jazzed about it, but it appears to be a general history source that probably doesn't even cover 1/4th of the articles it is being put into... It's almost like spam... what to do? --Kuuzo 08:46, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Yeah... maybe we should just talk to him, might be a good first step. Personally, I find a source like this almost completely useless as (a) it's in French, and I don't read French, and this is the English Wikipedia, and (b) written in 1834, or is it 1652, it incorporates none of the knowledge and understanding that historians (i.e. academia) have acquired since then, and probably reflects at the very least some very outdated spellings and terminology, if not outright misunderstandings and factual errors. It is likely a fascinating historical artifact in its own right, and a wonderful research project in order to learn more about Titsingh's views etc. but it really should not be taken as an accurate historical record. Personally, I would take anything written by Westerners in the Far East prior to the late 19th century with a massive grain of salt. LordAmeth 11:39, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I thought you should know that a discussion has begun here as to the validity and importance of your adding the Titsingh book to so many articles. Citations from a source, in any language, are of course wonderful, but the implication that this is relevant "Further reading" for so many topics, and that it's an appropriate suggestion for the English-language Wikipedia seems a bit much. In any case, I am not here to criticize or anything like that, but to inform you of the discussion - it would not be appropriate to talk about this behind your back, so to speak. Thanks. LordAmeth 11:47, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Since your particular focus is military history, perhaps it's best to begin my explanation with something that involves fighting -- the unremitting military action in northern Honshu as Matsu and Echigo resisted campaigns to bring the entire island within the ambit of imperial domination. You say that Titsingh's translation of Odai Ichiran is still inaccessible to you personally because you don't read French, but I'm posting an English translation in Wikipedia so that you and others can incorporate "new" data within what you already know. Please consider this point in its "stub" context here.

Wadō 2, in the 3rd month (709): There was an uprising against governmental authority in Mutsu province and in Echigo province. Troops were promptly dispatched to subdue the revolt.<ref.>Titsingh, p. 64.<./ref>

Having demonstrated plausible utility with a minor engagement within the ambit of Japanese military history, can we at least agree that this isn't spam? The fact of the matter is that there are large areas into which Wikipedia has not yet expanded -- rather like the "blank" spaces into which Yamato expansion had not fully taken hold in the 8th century, and the Titsingh translation of Odai Ichiran fills that void perfectly because the citation incorporates a direct link to a digitized version of his text. The fact that an otherwise blank page will have at least one citation on it tells anyone who consults Wikipedia that there is something to find, that there is an "answer" -- it's just not quite there yet ... a work in progress, so to speak.

From a historiography perspective, I would invite you to consider Nipon o daï itsi ran in a peculiar Japanese context created by even older texts -- Jinnō Shōtōki or ''Gukanshō. Ultimately, Wikipedia aims to be something more -- something quite different in intent and in consequence than the 11th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica; and in that broader, long-term, evolving enterprise, I'm convinced that I'm doing exactly the right thing at the right time. Perhaps I need to revisit every citation so that I can simply enclose the title in brackets, thus creating a clickable link to Nipon o daï itsi ran ...?

As an opening salvo, I reckon this might be just enough without being too much. Ooperhoofd 13:37, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

As I stated in a discussion on Ooperhoofd's user page, before he copied it here and blanked his user page, I concur completely with LordAmeth's assessment above. In fact, I have already found several of the entries to be in error, when compared with numerous modern Japanese sources, and the Romanization problem that LordAmeth's supposes is very real. Many of the entries are rendered very difficult to comprehend, not only because of the Romanization problem, but because they use dated terms like "Miyako", etc. If Ooperhoofd were very knowledgeable about Japanese history and could separate the wheat from the chaff, it would be one thing, but this is clearly a case of the blind leading the blind. The work he has done isn't completely meaningless of course, but it is going to take a great deal of double-checking, scrubbing and editing to turn his edits from innacurate or misleading to useful. Plus, there is already an abundance of Japanese sources on Japanese history that are all in relative agreement about most of the entries that are being posted (plus an excellent English source in The Cambridge History of Japan), so why a 200 year old French translation of a book written by a Dutchman over 400 years ago, based on a Japanese source that is even older than that (not sure if I traced the history correctly, but it is difficult to keep track) should be considered useful to a reader of the English Wikipedia is difficult to comprehend. I feel bad for Ooperhoofd, because he is obviously very excited about the book and has done a lot of work based on it, but a neutral assessment of the reliability of the source is what is important here.-Jefu 15:32, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Also, I think it is important to note the difference between citations and suggesting something as Further Reading. Citations are a wonderful thing, no matter what language the source is in. I am not at all opposed to the use of this book as a cited source, provided that such errors are watched out for, etc. But there is a key difference between citing something as a source and suggesting it as Further Reading. Foreign language books should not be suggested for further reading, and I don't think things should be suggested unless they are directly pertinent to the topic at hand. Even from what little I know about this book I can hazard a guess that there is not a significant percentage of the book devoted exclusively to Kujo Yoritsune or to Empress Gemmei, and therefore it should not be suggested as further reading on those subjects. Please, Ooperhoofd, if you have a specific fact or point to cite, go ahead and cite it, but do not suggest this text - which is in a foreign language, and is far too old to be a reliable source - as if it were the definitive textbook on a half dozen scattered topics. LordAmeth 17:38, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. You make my point succinctly. Prof. Timon Screech of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) has assessed this work as “a necessary reference work for officials” in the Tokugawa bakufu. The book was re-issued in 1803, which allows us to infer the requisite degree of accuracy in its dry detail. As a place from which to begin to construct a pre-Meiji stub article for the 21st century online Wikipedia, this unique reference source should be construed as a plausible and appropriate development – not something to be to dismissed out-of-hand as you seem to do here.

Instead of combining to quash my enthusiasm, why not ponder the more interesting question about how or why I came to have been inspired by something which had not formerly risen to your attention?

I wonder: Shouldn’t you rather want to pause a little bit for further thought before determining that the unexplored possibilities for the growth of Wikipedia should be placed so casually at odds with the burgeoning, concurrent development of digitized, online books?

I’m not missing the gravamen of a number of issues here; but I hope you’re beginning to see that I’m not approaching two knee-jerk complaints in a superficial manner – rather, I’m trying to turn the “conversation” towards a constructive outcome.

Perhaps it would have been better to reject the Whig foundations of what seem to be generalized objections to anything outside the corpus of what you three Wikipedia "old hands" have already studied. That sounds a little stuffy. I’d prefer to convert a pointless confrontation into something useful. Can you work with me a bit more on this?

The current romanization of this book’s title is Nihon odai ichiran ("Table of the rulers of Japan"); but the Google Books search engine uses the title on the book itself – and so did I. I presume that the Google Books Library Project uses a similar catalog protocol. Mine may not have been the best choice, but it was at least an informed choice to harmonize with a changing Internet milieu. With your help, I can make better choices in the future (or at least I can learn to defend those choices more tactfully). Ooperhoofd 20:08, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I am not trying to quash your enthusiasm. I am simply trying to encourage you to recognize that just because the original Japanese version was accurate enough to be useful for Tokugawa-period bureaucrats does not mean that the French translation of the Dutch translation of the Japanese is accurate enough, absent the input of any historical research or revelations of the last 150 years or so, for our use today as historians. I went out drinking with Tim last night, as a matter of fact, and I very much think he would agree with me. And, since you seem to be missing this point, that citing a source and suggesting it as further reading are completely separate issues. LordAmeth 20:55, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

According to the wikipedia entry on that book, it is going to be translated into english this year. It would be far more logical, productive, and useful to wait for that. Otherwise, someone is going to have to go in and replace all that text in each of the dozens of articles Ooperhoofd is putting it into. And I still don't see any logical connection between that book and the articles it is being put into. It goes without saying that the age of the book (and thus veracity) is questionable at best. I'd be hesitant to even use it as a source, aside from using it as a reference in footnotes to information otherwise verified with primary and academic sources. A quick and easy illustration of the problems of using edo-era materials is the Shincho-ki - the Shinchoki was a popular fictionalization of the primary document Shinchokoki - because of the popularity of the fictionalized shinchoki, it was used as a source document for histories and commentaries during the Edo period, and the repercussions of this are still felt today with the "generally accepted" description of the battle of nagashino, which has come into question in the past few decades as the sources for the scholarship have been examined and found to be wanting. So it isn't unlikely that this book could have the same issues from different "romanticized" sources. Not the easiest explanation to follow, but it was the one that came immediately to mind.

I recently read about the controversy over using the 1911 encyclopedia brittanica (or whichever), due to it's age, and this predates that significantly. As an aside, this user also created that wikipedia page, so coupled with putting it in all of those articles makes one wonder if this may fit the description of WP:Spam. I'm not saying explicitly that it does, of course. The main issue I started this topic with seems to be the one this user hasn't addressed: This book is unlikely to have anything directly to do with the articles he is pasting it into. Or, as LordAmeth so succinctly put it, Foreign language books should not be suggested for further reading, and I don't think things should be suggested unless they are directly pertinent to the topic at hand. --Kuuzo 08:37, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Title

What is the actual title of this book? If it was written by the daimyo of Wakasa (misidentified as a Prince in the Western translations), then it would have a name like 日本を大一覧 or the like, which would be properly romanized as Nippon wo Daiichiran. This misrepresentation of the title of the book, and of the daimyo as a "Prince" is precisely the kind of error that appears when one uses a contemporary Dutch primary source and fails to account for historical and linguistic errors.

When reading these sources, one must account for the fact that the "King" of Japan is the Shogun, "Meaco" is Kyoto, Nagasacque is Nagasaki, Faifo is Hoi An, etc. If you take these things straight out of your primary source and represent them directly as is, you are effectively ignoring, and nullifying, all the scholastic progress that has come since, and reflecting pre-modern or early modern Japan not as it was, but as the Dutch and other Westerners saw it at the time - a valuable exercise in its own right, but one must be cognizant of that bias. 17th century Dutch sources are just as inaccurate about Japanese events and conditions as 17th century Japanese sources are about Dutch history. LordAmeth 17:48, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

No problem. I do apologize if I come across as too harsh, or confrontational. I simply want to work together with others to help the project improve. Is it alright with you if we move the page to Nihon odai ichiran? LordAmeth 20:57, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes -- sure. And I'll adopt one of your sentences: "I simply want to work together with others to help the project improve." If I had used these very same words as an introductory comment, maybe the rest of what I was trying to say would have been construed differently? Ooperhoofd 00:32, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

It's so hard working from just text to get one's emotion across, and to read other's properly. I'm sure I'm just as guilty as anyone else of not trying hard enough to Assume good faith. LordAmeth 01:53, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Okay. I've moved the page to the proper romanization, and incorporated into the intro a tad bit more about its translation and the origin of the French name. Am I correct in assuming that Titsingh translated it directly into French, and not into Dutch? The next step is to worry about WP:OR, as the sections about Wikipedia, and the current 21st century translation project, cannot be cited to any reliable published sources (or can they?). LordAmeth 09:43, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I may be a little late in joining this conversation, but the title is wrong. It should be 日本王代一覧. And the proper spelling of it is Nihon Ōdai Ichiran. Is the purpose of this page to be about the original text (Nihon Ōdai Ichiran) or the Titsingh / Klaproth translation (Nipon o daï itsi ran)? If the later, then I think an article on the original text (Nihon Ōdai Ichiran) by Hayashi Gahō is also needed. I recommend renaming the page Nihon Ōdai Ichiran and being done with it. Bendono 02:09, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

As far as I'm concerned, anyone should feel free to edit this text in any way. Ooperhoofd 02:36, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I wanted to make sure since a discussion just concluded on the topic. LordAmeth, do you have a problem if I move the page to Nihon Ōdai Ichiran? Bendono 02:47, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

No problem at all. I guessed wrong on the kanji, and thus ended up with the wrong romanization. gomen,ne. LordAmeth 08:25, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

The title is 本朝通鑑/ほんちょうつがん/Honchoutsugan in Japanese. 林羅山/Hayashi Razan and 林鵞峰/Hayashi Gahou. They are father and son.Oda Mari 15:40, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

『本朝通鑑』 is a different book. Same author (林鵞峰) but was 310 volumes in length and was written in 1670, almost 20 years later. 『日本王代一覧』 was written in 1653 and was much shorter at only 7 volumes. He wrote other stuff too. Go look it up in Iwanami's 『日本古典文学大辞典』. 日本古典籍総合目録 is another resource. Bendono 19:56, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Oops. Sorry. Please forgive me.Oda Mari 04:41, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Richard A.B. Ponsonby-Fane

Just a question about the man and how he's referenced in this article-- Does he count as a "modern" scholar? I know he's 20th century, but his work is pretty dated by now. He's part of that really early first wave of Japanologists in the postwar era, isn't he? I dunno, maybe he counts as "modern" and it's just my definition of "modern" that's off. At any rate, I was wondering if someone could offer some perspective on this. Thank you. -Tadakuni 18:32, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Although the Kyoto book cited was published in the 1950s, it is really just a reprinting of academic papers which were initially drafted in the 1920s by a scholar who died in the 1930s. When I used the word "modern" in the paragraph you're questioning, my actual intention was to put the reference in that curious Japanese context in which everything pre-Meiji is understood as somehow distinct from the outward-looking "modern" vision of the Restoration. Photographs of the thrones used in the Taisho accession ceremonies could only be described as "modern" in terms of this very specific way of parsing the chronology of Japanese history (and it just happens that this is one of the images in the the Ponsonby-Fane book).

Yes, of course, I can see that it's a stretch for someone in the 21st century to describe a Taisho-era writer as "modern." To be frank, until you raised this question, I didn't appreciate that I'd positioned myself imaginatively at the fulcrum of the Meiji period with everything before being "old" and everything afterwards being "new." I can't help but smile as I recall my stolid mind-set as I constructed these few paragraphs. Bottom line: Of course, you're right -- the word "modern" can be easily edited out. What would you suggest as an improvement? Ooperhoofd 20:52, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Post-Meiji works fine, I think. One further question, though-- is Meiji italicized? History monographs/texts I've read (mainly things written from the late 1970s to the present) studying the 19th century don't italicize it. Just wondering if it was an idiosyncracy of Wikipedia or anything like that. -Tadakuni 21:55, 3 July 2007 (UTC)