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Would anyone object to this being restored? Teeninvestor ( talk) 16:18, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
two issues with this paragraph:
-- Ludwigs2 17:00, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
first concern has been addressed. A quote from Scheidel about the lack of comparative scholarship is here:
Teeninvestor ( talk) 18:29, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
I think you misunderstodo what he was saying. Note that he mentions there are few but not no sources for the article. Also bear in mind that this summary was written four or five years ago; many more sources have been published since, including Scheidel's own papers. Note how this passage shows the importance of this topic:
Recent macro-historical work has highlighted independent parallel movements of socio-cultural evolution in different parts of the globe (Diamond 1998). More specifically, historians of the more recent past are showing great interest in comparative assessments of Europe and China that further our understanding of the emergence of modernity and the Industrial Revolution (e.g., Pomeranz 2000).
.
He also mentions the following sources for this topic have already been published:
Hsing I-Tien 1980, an unpublished thesis, seems to be the main exception in a western language; cf. also Lorenz 1990 and Motomura 1991, and now Adshead 2000: 4-21 and 2004: 20-29 as well as Gizewski 1994 and Dettenhofer 2006 for brief comparisons of the Roman and Han empires. A recent conference focused on literary and ideological constructions of the Qin-Han and Roman empires: Mutschler & Mittag (org.) 2005 = (eds.) 2008; but see now also Mutschler 2008 (org.)
Some of these sources have already been incorporated, butmore could definitely be put into this article. Teeninvestor ( talk) 19:20, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
(od) I cleaned up the lead for subject-verb matches and readability, after not looking at it for a while it seemed a bit stilted and the thought process not quite in logical order. PЄTЄRS VЄСRUМВА ► talk 20:42, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
I searched the biblio of the article and I came up with several sources not yet int he article comparing the two mentioned by Scheidel:
A masters thesis is not a reliable source as far as Wikipedia is concerned and mention of Custer should be removed from the article as well as the source; this would also necessitate removing mention of Romanization which is an outdated and rejected concept in ancient history. I have taken this action myself. There is a good quote from Scheidel explaining the paucity of comparative studies of Rome and the Han Empire which I have added and goes some way to explaining why the article has so many holes.
The article is much better than the version nominated for deletion a week or so ago, but it still has problems, not least of which is that of scope. There was no Roman Empire until the Principate, under the Republic there was a de facto empire, but the article makes no effort to explain this. If the article continues to include the Republic, and I have reservations about whether that is a good idea, it needs to be made clear in the article that there was no official Empire until the Principate was established. I have to say that the article still requires a lot of work, and as such I support working on it in here rather than presenting an article to the public that we know has major problems.
I admit that my knowledge of the Han Empire is virtually non-existant, but I am fortunately more familiar with the Roman Empire. As such there are some gaping holes and imbalances in the article, not to mention some things that are just plain wring (see above regarding the Republic). For example, saying "Rome, on the other hand, never faced an enemy that posed an existential threat after 275 BCE (save for the Punic wars)" is like saying "Europe in the 20th century was a peaceful place (save for two World Wars)". The Punic Wars had a profound effect on Rome that cannot be dismissed so out of hand. If that is what Scheidel actually says it calls into question his validity, however I would not be surprised if he has been misrepresented. Aside from the Punic Wars under the Republic there were slave revolts, civil wars, military coups, the Praetorian Guard trying to control things; all of these were very serious threats to Rome.
The Monetary system section is too narrow and, sources permitting, needs to be expanded to the economy as a whole; it makes no sense to talk about coinage without reference to the economy. Trade was one area where Rome and China actually interacted; China sold silk to Rome through the Persian Empire. In exchange, Rome gave China precious metals which China lacked. This trade was so large that senators in Rome were worried that their reserves of gold and silver would dwindle and wanted to stop trade with China. Later, Rome processed the silk and sold it back to China at a much higher price. And of course, no study of the Roman Empire is complete without mentioning civil war. If the sources do not permit these gaps to be filled, it suggests that this article may not suitable for an encyclopedia.
"The Han Empire's crop was millet, a more durable crop that could be grown in more regions than Rome": I'm not even sure what that sentence means. "Specifically, both empires promoted a similar culture among the elite to foster unity and built roads and walls to enhance communications and defend against their barbarian opponents": how did promoting a culture among the elite lead to roads being built? Also, the use of barbarians is wrong. It was a derogatory term used by the Romans to describe anyone they viewed as uncivilised, and perpetuated by 19th century historians trying to justify colonialism. Some sources still use "barbarians" as shorthand, but we this article needs to be very careful about using it, and should preferably dispense with it altogether. Explain who these supposed "barbarians" were. There' s still imbalance in the article. When mentioning Rome's "burdensome state", it should be mentioned that Rome had the corn dole for around 150,000 people. Did the Han Empire have anything similar to this proto-welfare state? Do people agree with everything that Adshead says? I will have access to Scheidel's Rome and China : comparative perspectives on ancient world empires sometime next month. Nev1 ( talk) 14:50, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
Nev1, to answer your question:
- the scope of the article technically includes the two "empires" as well as the phase leading up to their formation, which would be the Roman Republic for Rome and Warring states/Qin for China(and besides, de jure the Principate was still a "republic" and the emperor merely "first among citizens").
-The article about elites and roads was a statement by Adshead who stated two similarities about the two empires, the key word is and. The two are in no way connected.
- The Han did not have a welfare state, they had a strict laissez-faire policy except for Emperor Wu who intervened into the economy to support his wars and his laws were later repealed. (Perhaps read Han Dynasty and Economic history of China (pre-1911)#Han Dynasty for details).
-Civil war is mentioned in the article, when Adshead talks about the peaceful succession of the Han Empire compared to the frequnet military coups during the principate.
-I have added a section on trade and a section on alleged contact based on Adshead's source.
-both empires referred to the nomadic tribes that harassed them as barbarians.
-Scheidel was talking about something that threatened Rome's existence as a state. For example, even if slave revolts had succeeded, it is doubtful they would have conquered all of the Roman republic and established a "Spartacan Empire"? Teeninvestor ( talk) 15:16, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
Teeninvestor ( talk) 15:58, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
The article still makes me uneasy as it still seems to presenting people's opinion as fact. An encyclopedia isn't meant to draw comparisons. What I think might solve this problem is to address it as a concept, or area of study. By this I mean look at how the study of Han China and Rome evolved. For example, I would propose a new opening sentence along the lines of:
A comparison between the Roman and Han empires has been suggested since Edward Gibbon in the late 18th century. This is based on the similar scale of the empires, both in size and population, as well as parallels in their rise and decline. Historian Walter Scheidel has commented that "Comparisons between the ancient Mediterranean and China in the works of Max Weber or Karl Wittfogel have had little impact on the research agenda of specialist historians in either field. As a consequence, systematic comparisons between the Greco-Roman world and ancient China have been extremely rare (relative to the total amount of scholarship in either field) and moreover almost exclusively confined to the sphere of intellectual and philosophical history."
From there it can be explained what the purpose of the comparison is – something which really should be explained in the article but isn't. I don't mean the purpose of this article, I mean why academics think it might be a useful area of investigation. This elephant in the room needs to be addressed. What can one empire tell us about the other? Is it simply that historians have found it to be a curiosity, or is it a serious area of study? Can better understanding one empire lead us to a more complete understanding of the other?
I believe the article requires a change of direction and that this should be it. It would allow us to explain the deficiencies of the sources (drawing on Scheidel's explanation that it is a generally neglected area) and explain why there are such large gaps in the article. If this were to be done properly, I would support moving the article back into main space, however this would require a substantial restructuring. Nev1 ( talk) 16:29, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
Well to address the remaining issues, in order for slaves to secede they would have to first defeat the army. Also, after they succeeded in their coup, the Roman military had a nasty habit of doubling their pay and doing so through higher taxes/ inflation (which is a form of taxation). There was 15,000% inflation in the 3rd century and the entire empire was basically demonetized. Teeninvestor ( talk) 16:36, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
I archived both petitions earlier for being inappropriate. Teenivestor requested on my talk page that I unarchive them, and I rejected the idea. Below is my reasoning ( original posts):
- Also, as to the petition, the petition was meant to gauge consensus. I don't think it should be archived. When editors are happy with the article's current status, they can sign it. Teeninvestor ( talk) 15:20, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
- Petitions do not gain consensus as they seek only one side. They have their uses, but gauging consensus is not one of them. Moreover, your solicited support from those who supported you in the AfD. If you were trying to construct consensus, this is a blatant breach of WP:Canvas. If you do it again, you risk being blocked. The petitions will not be unarchived. Nev1 ( talk) 15:25, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
With an RfC active (goodness knows why, discussion is ongoing already) if anyone reopens these petitions again it will be a disruptive, and action will have to be taken. Nev1 ( talk) 21:02, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
If you believe the article is currently ready for mainspace and should be there, sign below:
Oppose:The article still bears the main author's intention of proving who is "superior" (and given the one-sidedness of the first version it would have been surprising otherwise). It is already hard enough reading uninformed opinions by Adshead and Scheidel on the Roman Empire which are not shared by the majority of their colleagues (but which are now made unaussailable due to the unavoidable, but inherently bad design of the article that only those authors who do direct comparisons are to be quoted), but selective reading and quoting makes it even worse. For example, why is the article silent on areas where the Romans were pretty advanced, such as their road and sea lane system (Adshead 15f.) or the great Roman building activity in contrast to the paucity of Han Chinese archaeological remains (Adshead 16f.). "Alleged contacts" btw is a extreme minority opinion refuted by all scholars as mere conjecture and thus should not be included according to WP guidelines. Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 12:52, 27 December 2009 (UTC
It should be stressed that the AfD guidelines laid out for this 'article', namely that only those (few) scholars who make a direct comparison between the two empires, are allowed to be referred too, have two grave consequences which make the article practically by default a piece of uninformed and outdated opinions.
Conclusion: The only acceptable remedy of this intrinsic dilemma with the 'article' is to allow research done separately on each of the empires to be included again. But then, we would immediately face the original situation of synthesis and original research by juxtaposing unrelated pieces of information. Therefore, given the insolvability of this 'comparison', I don't hesitate to repeat my vote of strong delete. Regards Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 12:52, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
Please provide your comment on whether the article, as it stands, should be restored to article space. If not provide your suggestions on what needs to be improved. Teeninvestor ( talk) 16:47, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
Finally, do I think the article is ready to move? No. The RfC probably could be closed actually. Nev1 ( talk) 23:24, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
The footnotes just say Adshead, but don't specify which work the come from. When no work is given, is the reference to Adhead's China In World History? Nev1 ( talk) 22:13, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
After inspecting several book reviews (some excerpts of which I will post below), I have removed reference to Adhead's China In World History. Unfortunately this has the side effect of making the article heavily reliant on Scheidel. I am working on a new draft, but it will completely revamp the article.
Many commend the book for being stimulating and interesting, and integrating China into world history, but I am very concerned about the points raised about accuracy, details, and his somewhat idiosyncratic opinions. The consensus appears to be that while Adshead is well read and the book is interesting, but it is not necessarily useful for this article as it has some significant flaws. Nev1 ( talk) 22:45, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
Unfortunately, "synthesis" is a "bad" word on WP when in fact, the best writing requires a process of synthesis of the multiple sources available to construct the unified whole of a flowing and informative narrative. The alternative is an endless succession of "he said, she said." PЄTЄRS VЄСRUМВА ► talk 15:37, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
Ok, I've rolled out a new start for the article. What do people think? Before I go any further (ie: starting on Scheidel 2009 and Mutschler & Mittag 2008) I need to know if people agree with the direction the article is taking. The contacts section is perhaps not necessary, but I think it provides some interesting info on the interaction between the two empires. Nev1 ( talk) 02:21, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
We probably have an article on this, in which case this section can be reduced to a summary.
If not, the following should be added:
(od) In reading through the current state of the article, contacts may work better at the start of the topic discussion, that is, despite their distance from one another, the empires were not unknown to each other (as one might expect), and perhaps summarized down a bit. The article does need a good deal of expansion regarding actual comparisons, those could be along quantitative lines (size, population, time span,...) and qualitative: government, society, customs, per comparisons that have been done. (The current Society section as is feels a bit of an orphan.)
On the mention of using a thesis as a source, it's not unheard of as long as it has been defended. Also, there's no reason not to create content based on the same sources a thesis uses--a thesis can postulate something new not in the literature but still has to depend on it. PЄTЄRS VЄСRUМВА ► talk 00:31, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
Yikes! (and I use that for rhetorical effect, don't anyone take that personally). The current section can be summarized as: "Adshead says stuff comparing political structures. Critics disagree." It's rather missing what Adshead says and what his critics say about it and why, which would be the whole point. I'm afraid this is not very informative. It's good to have a stake in the ground for what section to work on next, but it needs a lot of work. PЄTЄRS VЄСRUМВА ► talk 15:31, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
I have been looking the AfD and this effort at a rewrite out of general history is historical comparisons. However, I am having trouble identifying the purpose of this article. Neither the Roman nor Han states were static entities. Likewise, the actual historical timeline is that of two states that existed in overlapping, but not identical periods. Why is the comparison limited to the late Republic/Principate Rome and Han Dynasty?
I think the mistake here is to take two states that existed in overlapping time periods and which both have epochs which are regarded in the modern period as examples of a Golden Age for their respective regions. That said, neither state is alone within their timeline, and neither state was actually the penultimate power of the day which is to say that neither one could have marched an army right up to the other one because of all the really powerful states that also existed throughout history.
If a comparative article is really necessary, then it should be limited to apples to apples comparisons. For example, "in the first century AD, the Roman economy was X size and the Han economy was Y size". If the comparison is unknown, it stays out of the article. Hiberniantears ( talk) 22:07, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
I find these claims that Gibbon was the first to compare Rome and the Han very doubtful. What does Roberts actually say (my local copy is out)?
Should we consider a different name for the article's final location? "Comparison between Roman and Han Empires" really reflects the unsustainable version of this article, whereas "Comparative studies of the Roman and Han empires" is somewhat more befitting an encyclopedia article. Thoughts? Hiberniantears ( talk) 22:27, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
If there are no objections, I think this article is ready to move to Comparative studies of the Roman and Han empires with Comparison between Roman and Han Empires redirecting to the new location to avoid any original research forking. If we feel strongly about working on the article here in the incubator for a little while longer, I will hold off. Hiberniantears ( talk) 21:15, 9 January 2010 (UTC
A gentle reminder to the people editing the article to make sure the article sticks to the manual of style and that no information is lost and that it's all properly cited. In this version, there are two blank references, spaces between references (ie: [4] [5] instead of [4][5]) and an external link in the middle of the prose. Apart from the citations, these are little things, but it's much easier to fix as you go along rather than leave it till later, and since we're building the article from scratch we may as well make a good job of it. Nev1 ( talk) 22:20, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
After Nev left a note at my talk page it opened my eyes to the superfluous nature of the "Contact between the empires" section. I have since removed the section and converted it into a "See also" section with a link to Sino-Roman relations. Hiberniantears ( talk) 17:00, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
I have added a section on areas in which the two empires are commonly compared. I hope it will be expanded later on. Nev1's focus seems to be to change the article's orientation to be an article on the "area of study", which I am still a little foggy on; therefore I have just added a stub. Teeninvestor ( talk) 20:12, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
Okay, then. So I take it, that if I put the comparisons made by Scheidel on collapse, governance and monetary matters back into the article, you won't mind? I might need help on the citations though.
Teeninvestor (
talk) 20:27, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
Since this article is now being developed under a different name, I'd like to propose the deletion of the mainspace "comparison of..." stub. I don't think the talk page there is still needed (though I can ask to have it moved over as an archive of this page, if you all prefer), and the article itself apparently won't be developed under that name. I thought I'd ask here first, though, to see if there are any objections. -- Ludwigs2 17:47, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
Can someone explained to me what happened? I saw my watchlist and I saw a massive amoutn of moving and deleting. Teeninvestor ( talk) 16:39, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
Hi. This is absurd. Why does the redirect above still exist? It was exactly this topic of a direct "comparison" which the Afd found to be not in accordance with Wikipedia's scope. Since the topic is not anymore, the title naturally needs to be removed with it. Now, the link leads to a topic which does not exist and just seems to aim at fishing for readers who won't get, however, what they expect. Regards Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 20:21, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
Summary: It's been now something like two weeks since the vote and discussion have been floated, about twice as long as in the 'official' framework of an Afd or similar processes, so please allow me a brief summary: The main argument of keep was that there is some kind of requirement to link to the "sister project", while the main argument of delete was that there is no point in reintroducing a link to material which the community has decided to remove. The votes were 6 to 3 in favour of remove, and, with the latest votes also in favour of delete, there is no discernible trend to the contrary, either, which could warrant to continue the process. I thus remove the link. Regards. Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 08:18, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
This is the
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Comparative studies of the Roman and Han empires article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
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Would anyone object to this being restored? Teeninvestor ( talk) 16:18, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
two issues with this paragraph:
-- Ludwigs2 17:00, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
first concern has been addressed. A quote from Scheidel about the lack of comparative scholarship is here:
Teeninvestor ( talk) 18:29, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
I think you misunderstodo what he was saying. Note that he mentions there are few but not no sources for the article. Also bear in mind that this summary was written four or five years ago; many more sources have been published since, including Scheidel's own papers. Note how this passage shows the importance of this topic:
Recent macro-historical work has highlighted independent parallel movements of socio-cultural evolution in different parts of the globe (Diamond 1998). More specifically, historians of the more recent past are showing great interest in comparative assessments of Europe and China that further our understanding of the emergence of modernity and the Industrial Revolution (e.g., Pomeranz 2000).
.
He also mentions the following sources for this topic have already been published:
Hsing I-Tien 1980, an unpublished thesis, seems to be the main exception in a western language; cf. also Lorenz 1990 and Motomura 1991, and now Adshead 2000: 4-21 and 2004: 20-29 as well as Gizewski 1994 and Dettenhofer 2006 for brief comparisons of the Roman and Han empires. A recent conference focused on literary and ideological constructions of the Qin-Han and Roman empires: Mutschler & Mittag (org.) 2005 = (eds.) 2008; but see now also Mutschler 2008 (org.)
Some of these sources have already been incorporated, butmore could definitely be put into this article. Teeninvestor ( talk) 19:20, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
(od) I cleaned up the lead for subject-verb matches and readability, after not looking at it for a while it seemed a bit stilted and the thought process not quite in logical order. PЄTЄRS VЄСRUМВА ► talk 20:42, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
I searched the biblio of the article and I came up with several sources not yet int he article comparing the two mentioned by Scheidel:
A masters thesis is not a reliable source as far as Wikipedia is concerned and mention of Custer should be removed from the article as well as the source; this would also necessitate removing mention of Romanization which is an outdated and rejected concept in ancient history. I have taken this action myself. There is a good quote from Scheidel explaining the paucity of comparative studies of Rome and the Han Empire which I have added and goes some way to explaining why the article has so many holes.
The article is much better than the version nominated for deletion a week or so ago, but it still has problems, not least of which is that of scope. There was no Roman Empire until the Principate, under the Republic there was a de facto empire, but the article makes no effort to explain this. If the article continues to include the Republic, and I have reservations about whether that is a good idea, it needs to be made clear in the article that there was no official Empire until the Principate was established. I have to say that the article still requires a lot of work, and as such I support working on it in here rather than presenting an article to the public that we know has major problems.
I admit that my knowledge of the Han Empire is virtually non-existant, but I am fortunately more familiar with the Roman Empire. As such there are some gaping holes and imbalances in the article, not to mention some things that are just plain wring (see above regarding the Republic). For example, saying "Rome, on the other hand, never faced an enemy that posed an existential threat after 275 BCE (save for the Punic wars)" is like saying "Europe in the 20th century was a peaceful place (save for two World Wars)". The Punic Wars had a profound effect on Rome that cannot be dismissed so out of hand. If that is what Scheidel actually says it calls into question his validity, however I would not be surprised if he has been misrepresented. Aside from the Punic Wars under the Republic there were slave revolts, civil wars, military coups, the Praetorian Guard trying to control things; all of these were very serious threats to Rome.
The Monetary system section is too narrow and, sources permitting, needs to be expanded to the economy as a whole; it makes no sense to talk about coinage without reference to the economy. Trade was one area where Rome and China actually interacted; China sold silk to Rome through the Persian Empire. In exchange, Rome gave China precious metals which China lacked. This trade was so large that senators in Rome were worried that their reserves of gold and silver would dwindle and wanted to stop trade with China. Later, Rome processed the silk and sold it back to China at a much higher price. And of course, no study of the Roman Empire is complete without mentioning civil war. If the sources do not permit these gaps to be filled, it suggests that this article may not suitable for an encyclopedia.
"The Han Empire's crop was millet, a more durable crop that could be grown in more regions than Rome": I'm not even sure what that sentence means. "Specifically, both empires promoted a similar culture among the elite to foster unity and built roads and walls to enhance communications and defend against their barbarian opponents": how did promoting a culture among the elite lead to roads being built? Also, the use of barbarians is wrong. It was a derogatory term used by the Romans to describe anyone they viewed as uncivilised, and perpetuated by 19th century historians trying to justify colonialism. Some sources still use "barbarians" as shorthand, but we this article needs to be very careful about using it, and should preferably dispense with it altogether. Explain who these supposed "barbarians" were. There' s still imbalance in the article. When mentioning Rome's "burdensome state", it should be mentioned that Rome had the corn dole for around 150,000 people. Did the Han Empire have anything similar to this proto-welfare state? Do people agree with everything that Adshead says? I will have access to Scheidel's Rome and China : comparative perspectives on ancient world empires sometime next month. Nev1 ( talk) 14:50, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
Nev1, to answer your question:
- the scope of the article technically includes the two "empires" as well as the phase leading up to their formation, which would be the Roman Republic for Rome and Warring states/Qin for China(and besides, de jure the Principate was still a "republic" and the emperor merely "first among citizens").
-The article about elites and roads was a statement by Adshead who stated two similarities about the two empires, the key word is and. The two are in no way connected.
- The Han did not have a welfare state, they had a strict laissez-faire policy except for Emperor Wu who intervened into the economy to support his wars and his laws were later repealed. (Perhaps read Han Dynasty and Economic history of China (pre-1911)#Han Dynasty for details).
-Civil war is mentioned in the article, when Adshead talks about the peaceful succession of the Han Empire compared to the frequnet military coups during the principate.
-I have added a section on trade and a section on alleged contact based on Adshead's source.
-both empires referred to the nomadic tribes that harassed them as barbarians.
-Scheidel was talking about something that threatened Rome's existence as a state. For example, even if slave revolts had succeeded, it is doubtful they would have conquered all of the Roman republic and established a "Spartacan Empire"? Teeninvestor ( talk) 15:16, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
Teeninvestor ( talk) 15:58, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
The article still makes me uneasy as it still seems to presenting people's opinion as fact. An encyclopedia isn't meant to draw comparisons. What I think might solve this problem is to address it as a concept, or area of study. By this I mean look at how the study of Han China and Rome evolved. For example, I would propose a new opening sentence along the lines of:
A comparison between the Roman and Han empires has been suggested since Edward Gibbon in the late 18th century. This is based on the similar scale of the empires, both in size and population, as well as parallels in their rise and decline. Historian Walter Scheidel has commented that "Comparisons between the ancient Mediterranean and China in the works of Max Weber or Karl Wittfogel have had little impact on the research agenda of specialist historians in either field. As a consequence, systematic comparisons between the Greco-Roman world and ancient China have been extremely rare (relative to the total amount of scholarship in either field) and moreover almost exclusively confined to the sphere of intellectual and philosophical history."
From there it can be explained what the purpose of the comparison is – something which really should be explained in the article but isn't. I don't mean the purpose of this article, I mean why academics think it might be a useful area of investigation. This elephant in the room needs to be addressed. What can one empire tell us about the other? Is it simply that historians have found it to be a curiosity, or is it a serious area of study? Can better understanding one empire lead us to a more complete understanding of the other?
I believe the article requires a change of direction and that this should be it. It would allow us to explain the deficiencies of the sources (drawing on Scheidel's explanation that it is a generally neglected area) and explain why there are such large gaps in the article. If this were to be done properly, I would support moving the article back into main space, however this would require a substantial restructuring. Nev1 ( talk) 16:29, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
Well to address the remaining issues, in order for slaves to secede they would have to first defeat the army. Also, after they succeeded in their coup, the Roman military had a nasty habit of doubling their pay and doing so through higher taxes/ inflation (which is a form of taxation). There was 15,000% inflation in the 3rd century and the entire empire was basically demonetized. Teeninvestor ( talk) 16:36, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
I archived both petitions earlier for being inappropriate. Teenivestor requested on my talk page that I unarchive them, and I rejected the idea. Below is my reasoning ( original posts):
- Also, as to the petition, the petition was meant to gauge consensus. I don't think it should be archived. When editors are happy with the article's current status, they can sign it. Teeninvestor ( talk) 15:20, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
- Petitions do not gain consensus as they seek only one side. They have their uses, but gauging consensus is not one of them. Moreover, your solicited support from those who supported you in the AfD. If you were trying to construct consensus, this is a blatant breach of WP:Canvas. If you do it again, you risk being blocked. The petitions will not be unarchived. Nev1 ( talk) 15:25, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
With an RfC active (goodness knows why, discussion is ongoing already) if anyone reopens these petitions again it will be a disruptive, and action will have to be taken. Nev1 ( talk) 21:02, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
If you believe the article is currently ready for mainspace and should be there, sign below:
Oppose:The article still bears the main author's intention of proving who is "superior" (and given the one-sidedness of the first version it would have been surprising otherwise). It is already hard enough reading uninformed opinions by Adshead and Scheidel on the Roman Empire which are not shared by the majority of their colleagues (but which are now made unaussailable due to the unavoidable, but inherently bad design of the article that only those authors who do direct comparisons are to be quoted), but selective reading and quoting makes it even worse. For example, why is the article silent on areas where the Romans were pretty advanced, such as their road and sea lane system (Adshead 15f.) or the great Roman building activity in contrast to the paucity of Han Chinese archaeological remains (Adshead 16f.). "Alleged contacts" btw is a extreme minority opinion refuted by all scholars as mere conjecture and thus should not be included according to WP guidelines. Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 12:52, 27 December 2009 (UTC
It should be stressed that the AfD guidelines laid out for this 'article', namely that only those (few) scholars who make a direct comparison between the two empires, are allowed to be referred too, have two grave consequences which make the article practically by default a piece of uninformed and outdated opinions.
Conclusion: The only acceptable remedy of this intrinsic dilemma with the 'article' is to allow research done separately on each of the empires to be included again. But then, we would immediately face the original situation of synthesis and original research by juxtaposing unrelated pieces of information. Therefore, given the insolvability of this 'comparison', I don't hesitate to repeat my vote of strong delete. Regards Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 12:52, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
Please provide your comment on whether the article, as it stands, should be restored to article space. If not provide your suggestions on what needs to be improved. Teeninvestor ( talk) 16:47, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
Finally, do I think the article is ready to move? No. The RfC probably could be closed actually. Nev1 ( talk) 23:24, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
The footnotes just say Adshead, but don't specify which work the come from. When no work is given, is the reference to Adhead's China In World History? Nev1 ( talk) 22:13, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
After inspecting several book reviews (some excerpts of which I will post below), I have removed reference to Adhead's China In World History. Unfortunately this has the side effect of making the article heavily reliant on Scheidel. I am working on a new draft, but it will completely revamp the article.
Many commend the book for being stimulating and interesting, and integrating China into world history, but I am very concerned about the points raised about accuracy, details, and his somewhat idiosyncratic opinions. The consensus appears to be that while Adshead is well read and the book is interesting, but it is not necessarily useful for this article as it has some significant flaws. Nev1 ( talk) 22:45, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
Unfortunately, "synthesis" is a "bad" word on WP when in fact, the best writing requires a process of synthesis of the multiple sources available to construct the unified whole of a flowing and informative narrative. The alternative is an endless succession of "he said, she said." PЄTЄRS VЄСRUМВА ► talk 15:37, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
Ok, I've rolled out a new start for the article. What do people think? Before I go any further (ie: starting on Scheidel 2009 and Mutschler & Mittag 2008) I need to know if people agree with the direction the article is taking. The contacts section is perhaps not necessary, but I think it provides some interesting info on the interaction between the two empires. Nev1 ( talk) 02:21, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
We probably have an article on this, in which case this section can be reduced to a summary.
If not, the following should be added:
(od) In reading through the current state of the article, contacts may work better at the start of the topic discussion, that is, despite their distance from one another, the empires were not unknown to each other (as one might expect), and perhaps summarized down a bit. The article does need a good deal of expansion regarding actual comparisons, those could be along quantitative lines (size, population, time span,...) and qualitative: government, society, customs, per comparisons that have been done. (The current Society section as is feels a bit of an orphan.)
On the mention of using a thesis as a source, it's not unheard of as long as it has been defended. Also, there's no reason not to create content based on the same sources a thesis uses--a thesis can postulate something new not in the literature but still has to depend on it. PЄTЄRS VЄСRUМВА ► talk 00:31, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
Yikes! (and I use that for rhetorical effect, don't anyone take that personally). The current section can be summarized as: "Adshead says stuff comparing political structures. Critics disagree." It's rather missing what Adshead says and what his critics say about it and why, which would be the whole point. I'm afraid this is not very informative. It's good to have a stake in the ground for what section to work on next, but it needs a lot of work. PЄTЄRS VЄСRUМВА ► talk 15:31, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
I have been looking the AfD and this effort at a rewrite out of general history is historical comparisons. However, I am having trouble identifying the purpose of this article. Neither the Roman nor Han states were static entities. Likewise, the actual historical timeline is that of two states that existed in overlapping, but not identical periods. Why is the comparison limited to the late Republic/Principate Rome and Han Dynasty?
I think the mistake here is to take two states that existed in overlapping time periods and which both have epochs which are regarded in the modern period as examples of a Golden Age for their respective regions. That said, neither state is alone within their timeline, and neither state was actually the penultimate power of the day which is to say that neither one could have marched an army right up to the other one because of all the really powerful states that also existed throughout history.
If a comparative article is really necessary, then it should be limited to apples to apples comparisons. For example, "in the first century AD, the Roman economy was X size and the Han economy was Y size". If the comparison is unknown, it stays out of the article. Hiberniantears ( talk) 22:07, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
I find these claims that Gibbon was the first to compare Rome and the Han very doubtful. What does Roberts actually say (my local copy is out)?
Should we consider a different name for the article's final location? "Comparison between Roman and Han Empires" really reflects the unsustainable version of this article, whereas "Comparative studies of the Roman and Han empires" is somewhat more befitting an encyclopedia article. Thoughts? Hiberniantears ( talk) 22:27, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
If there are no objections, I think this article is ready to move to Comparative studies of the Roman and Han empires with Comparison between Roman and Han Empires redirecting to the new location to avoid any original research forking. If we feel strongly about working on the article here in the incubator for a little while longer, I will hold off. Hiberniantears ( talk) 21:15, 9 January 2010 (UTC
A gentle reminder to the people editing the article to make sure the article sticks to the manual of style and that no information is lost and that it's all properly cited. In this version, there are two blank references, spaces between references (ie: [4] [5] instead of [4][5]) and an external link in the middle of the prose. Apart from the citations, these are little things, but it's much easier to fix as you go along rather than leave it till later, and since we're building the article from scratch we may as well make a good job of it. Nev1 ( talk) 22:20, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
After Nev left a note at my talk page it opened my eyes to the superfluous nature of the "Contact between the empires" section. I have since removed the section and converted it into a "See also" section with a link to Sino-Roman relations. Hiberniantears ( talk) 17:00, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
I have added a section on areas in which the two empires are commonly compared. I hope it will be expanded later on. Nev1's focus seems to be to change the article's orientation to be an article on the "area of study", which I am still a little foggy on; therefore I have just added a stub. Teeninvestor ( talk) 20:12, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
Okay, then. So I take it, that if I put the comparisons made by Scheidel on collapse, governance and monetary matters back into the article, you won't mind? I might need help on the citations though.
Teeninvestor (
talk) 20:27, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
Since this article is now being developed under a different name, I'd like to propose the deletion of the mainspace "comparison of..." stub. I don't think the talk page there is still needed (though I can ask to have it moved over as an archive of this page, if you all prefer), and the article itself apparently won't be developed under that name. I thought I'd ask here first, though, to see if there are any objections. -- Ludwigs2 17:47, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
Can someone explained to me what happened? I saw my watchlist and I saw a massive amoutn of moving and deleting. Teeninvestor ( talk) 16:39, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
Hi. This is absurd. Why does the redirect above still exist? It was exactly this topic of a direct "comparison" which the Afd found to be not in accordance with Wikipedia's scope. Since the topic is not anymore, the title naturally needs to be removed with it. Now, the link leads to a topic which does not exist and just seems to aim at fishing for readers who won't get, however, what they expect. Regards Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 20:21, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
Summary: It's been now something like two weeks since the vote and discussion have been floated, about twice as long as in the 'official' framework of an Afd or similar processes, so please allow me a brief summary: The main argument of keep was that there is some kind of requirement to link to the "sister project", while the main argument of delete was that there is no point in reintroducing a link to material which the community has decided to remove. The votes were 6 to 3 in favour of remove, and, with the latest votes also in favour of delete, there is no discernible trend to the contrary, either, which could warrant to continue the process. I thus remove the link. Regards. Gun Powder Ma ( talk) 08:18, 27 April 2010 (UTC)