Talk:History of Western civilization

message: Alfred the Great didn't drive the Vikings out of England in 954. He wasn't alive then. Justindlong (talk) 20:16, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Older comments

message: You're missing the Greeks and Romans. Western civ. didn't start with the Germanic tribes ;-)Rex 17:25, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It didn't start with the Greeks and Romans, they had their own civilization, Greco-Roman Civilization it is more commonly known as. Nor did Western Civ start with the Germanic tribes, but Celtic one's, the actual natives of Western Europe before the Germanic tribes pushed there way West from Scythia. Of course every civilization is influenced to some extent by other civilizations around it, just as Russia named their ruler, the czar, for Caesar. Language is shared heavily of course, but just because Western Civ uses the word democracy does not mean we have anything to do with the ancient Greeks. Jcchat66 (talk) 22:43, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  You're missing a big part. 

message: If much of the material in this article is taken from "The Earth and Its Peoples" ISBN:0618471146, it's probably a copyright violation. I've scanned this article's history and it seems to have a single primary author. This message will be crossposted to that editor's talk page and the appropriate noticeboard. (Wow, that's a big box!) Xaxafrad 08:23, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Do you have substantial reason to believe that it is? I've done a selective search for phrases from the article at the time of this note and have not found any duplication except at Wikipedia mirrors. Unfortunately, the book is not searchable: here. If this material duplicates text from that source or closely summarizes it, then it certainly could be a copyright infringement. In the absence of evidence, though, there's really no grounds to remove it. Please relist it at WP:CP if evidence is found and specify at least a couple of problematic passages. Needless to say, this is quite long. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:00, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Potential Copyvio 

message: Poland is mentioned in the article as a victim only. POV.Xx236 (talk) 12:22, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Poland as a victim 

message: The French one, yes. But he loved monarchies, when financed by them. Xx236 (talk) 07:54, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  The French philosopher Voltaire criticized the monarchy  

message: Napoleonic code should be mentioned in the article.Xx236 (talk) 09:24, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Napoleonic code]] 

message: Hussites aren't mentioned.Xx236 (talk) 14:54, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Hussite]] 

message: This article as written reflects what used to be a very pervasive pedagogical bias that "History of Western civilization" = History of France and England with other (Western European) countries making occasional cameo appearances (particularly if their fates intersected with that of France and England). This is evident in several ways. In regards to Poland, ss noted above by Xx236. In general Eastern and Southern Europe are forgotten. Bulgaria doesn't appear until WWI for example. Sweden, which was a Great Power for quite some time is mentioned only twice, once in a relation to New Sweden which was a short lived, fairly unimportant (in relative terms) colony. I'm not sure if the Ottomans should be considered part of Western civ (well, I think so) but they surely had a large impact on Europe. In the article they appear out of nowhere in the 16th century only to be quickly defeated by the Christians. Then they disappear again for several centuries again, only to be defeated again in WWI. The omission of the Hussites is a MAJOR oversight. The Hungarians show up in the 10th century and then are not heard from again until the German speaking Austrians condescend enough to form a union with them. Seriously, a good bit of the English/French stuff needs to be cut and made more general  and information on other places needs to be extended.radek (talk) 22:22, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reflecting old pedagogical bias 

message: That European Muslim thing has been debunked several times over. There are BBC articles on the subject. Justindlong (talk) 20:17, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Europe Muslim in 2100 ??? 

message: "In 1588 the staunchly Catholic Spanish attempted to conquer Protestant England with a large fleet of ships called the Spanish Armada, however a storm destroyed the fleet, saving England."
lol  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.170.158.139 (talk) 07:41, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Who wrote this nonsense 

message: This article currently says, "In 1095, Pope Urban II called for a Crusade to conquer the Holy Land from Muslim rule, when the Seljuk Turks prevented Christians from visiting the holy sites there. The crusade was a success and the crusaders established rule over the Holy Land. However, Muslim forces reconquered the land by the eleventh century, and subsequent crusades were not very successful."
It doesn't make sense to have the Crusaders establish rule over the Holy Land in the years leading up to 1100 and then have the Muslim forces reconquer it by the eleventh century. The dates don't work. I believe it should say that Muslim forces reconquered the land by the thirteenth century, but I'm not sure. Unless I'm really missing something though the way it's currently written cannot be right so I'm making the change. Should anyone with more knowledge on the subject see this, please check my info and change it if I'm mistaken. Thanks. Ckrp (talk) 03:47, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Current dates given don't make sense 

message: However, as the numbers of Palestinian Jews increased, conflicts with Arab Palestinians occurred. The UN proposed Palestine be divided into a Jewish state and an Arab state. The Arabs objected, however. Feeling it could do nothing to resolve the conflict, Britain withdrew and Jewish Palestinians declared the state of Israel. The Israelis immediately found themselves at war with their Arab neighbors. Israel survived the war and won two subsequent wars with neighboring Arab nations. Unfortunately, as a result of these wars, Israel found itself occupying the lands of the Arab Palestinians, called simply Palestinians today. This would lead to ongoing problems in the region.
"The UN proposed Palestine be divided into a Jewish state and an Arab state. The Arabs objected,": not entirely true either, the Zionists did not totally agree with the idea, as is explained the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine. 
"Jews, mostly from Europe, began immigrating to Palestine, since it was the land of their ancestors." 
- there are tons of people and resources that would disagree
Palestinian Jews is a misleading word there was a different between Palestinian Jewish population and the immigrant Jewish Population
Israel did not find itself occupying lands of the Arab Palestinians: this gives the impression that the Israeli are the victims who don't like occupying lands. I am not discussing whether that's true or not but that's not an objective statement.
I am rewriting this paragraph to include facts not emotions!
--Michael1408 04:48, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  misleading 

message: From its dawn until modern times, the West had suffered invasions from Africa, Asia, and non-Western parts of Europe. It had had a small population and was technologically backward. By 1500, however, Europe had caught up to the rest of the world technologically and was beginning to surpass it. 
I will remove this if it's no source added!
81.229.151.53 (talk) 08:42, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Who wrote this crap! Source? 

message: The image :File:Chile signs UN Charter 1945.jpg is used in this article under a claim of fair use, but it does not have an adequate explanation for why it meets the requirements for such images when used here.  In particular, for each page the image is used on, it must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page.  Please check
:* That there is a non-free use rationale on the image's description page for the use in this article.
:* That this article is linked to from the image description page.
This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. --21:27, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Image copyright problem with File:Chile signs UN Charter 1945.jpg

message: An image used in this article, , has been nominated for deletion at Wikimedia Commons in the following category: Deletion requests December 2011 
;What should I do?
Don't panic; a discussion will now take place over on Commons about whether to remove the file. This gives you an opportunity to contest the deletion, although please review Commons guidelines before doing so.
* If the image is non-free then you may need to upload it to Wikipedia (Commons does not allow fair use)
* If the image isn't freely licensed and there is no fair use rationale then it cannot be uploaded or used.
This notification is provided by a Bot --CommonsNotificationBot (talk) 13:25, 24 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: File:BattleofIssus333BC-mosaic-detail1.jpg Nominated for Deletion

message: I found it immensely helpful to read the article at one go. I would strongly suggest it not be split into other pages. I find this article among the most valuable i have ever read on wikipedia.   — Preceding unsigned comment added by 116.202.232.179 (talk) 07:13, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: The chainsaw approach would not be appropriate here. You have correctly tagged this article as being very long and hard to read etc. Just cutting out a chunk doesn't make it any easier to read. Instead, what you will need to do is leave a reasonable summary. If you aim to have a final article heare of say 50k then you would probably have a well written overview with a set of detailed articles for those who need it. This will be a lot of work, but remember that WP:SPINOUT says there is no need for haste. Personally, I would prefer to see the summary for the part that has already split written before the other sections are split out. Op47 (talk) 22:35, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that there is a place for an article like this in Wikipedia. It's under 35,000 words, as it stands now. It may perhaps be written better, but shortened? I don't think so. For grammar school or high school students--actually, even for college students--a summary article like this is a desirable thing. Perhaps it could not be read in one sitting for some people, but it serves a desirable purpose: a reasonably concise overview of the development of western civ without having to check out numerous articles, which together would be much longer than what we have here. Allen Roth 207.237.89.3 (talk) 11:37, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Size Split? 

message: The origins of Western Civilization lie in the Bronze Age Middle-East.  Almost every economic institution & practice was pioneered in the temples & palaces (public sector) of Mesopotamia 
Vilhelmo (talk) 17:26, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: More exactly, in the civilization of Ancient Israel. The origins of the Judaeo-Christian tradition which, together with Hellenic Civilization are the foundations of Western Civilization, as we know it today. Allen Roth 207.237.89.3 (talk) 11:24, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Origins of Western Civilization do NOT lie in Greece & Rome! 

message: How does a passing mention Hawaii contribute constructively to this article?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Drno31 (talk • contribs) 02:53, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I removed it on the grounds that it lacked a source. BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 07:40, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hawaii 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 2 external links on History of Western civilization. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090929140952/http://moadoph.gov.au/our-democracy/democracy-timeline/ to http://moadoph.gov.au/our-democracy/democracy-timeline/
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110723143635/http://www.historyoftennis.net/history_of_tennis.html to http://www.historyoftennis.net/history_of_tennis.html
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 00:37, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: The reason I removed the reference to "Ancient Israel" (and its citation), and specified Hellenistic Judaism and Jewish Christians is because the statement that simply "Ancient Israel" directly influenced nascent Western civilization is spurious at absolute best. Calling it "Ancient Israel" (and moreover: placing it alongside Greece and Rome) is highly misleading, given that what scholars generally refer to as "Ancient Israel" is the period of the Hebrew monarchies, which ended in the early 6th Century BCE; Hebrew civilization at that time had not even begun to interact with the cultures considered "Western", let alone be lumped in with them as if it were considered akin. To gloss the very specific historical context of Greco-Roman influence on Second Temple Jews as simply "Ancient Israel" erroneously implies that the Israelite Kingdom (c. 1200-600BCE) had a direct influence on Western culture prior to the period in which the early West actually began to interact with Jewish culture (c.300). Yes, a source is given which credits ancient Jews as having impacted the West and/or Christianity, but the source itself does not adequately justify the misleading and inexact attribution to "Ancient Israel", rather than specifically the Hellenized Judaism and Jewish Christians of the Second Temple period. The specific historical context in which Judaism influenced the formation of the nascent West was during the period of Hellenization; during which, the territory once known as "Israel-Judah" was called Galilee and Judea (and Samaria), not Israel. I feel that this specificity is needed to accurately represent the historical development of Western culture; because as it stands, implying that Ancient Israel (the early Iron Age Semitic kingdom) had a direct or "seminal" impact on the West is in conflict with the several other (correct) references in the article to historical Western and/or Christian antagonism towards Jews and Judaism, and could easily be confusing. Yes, some of the literature and mythology produced by Ancient Israel would eventually trickle down through the subsequent Jewish polities and into Christian/Western civilization, but this is, again, an indirect contribution (the interpretation of which was also substantially influenced later by Hellenism, Christianity, etc.). "Judaism" is often taken to refer to Jewish religious traditions as a whole, both ancient and modern, and particularly Rabbinical Judaism; but Christianity/the West was not directly, seminally, or otherwise strongly impacted by post-Temple Jewish culture or religion, they were specifically impacted by a specific form of Judaism and Judaic proto-Christianity which existed only during the period of the Second Temple, during which Hellenization was a prominent and influential factor. Batanat (talk) 01:43, 23 February 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Ancient Israel" vs. "Second Temple Judaism" 

message: I changed the opening paragraph because the first sentence had been edited last year to say, "Western civilization traces its roots back to Western Europe and the Western Mediterranean." The problem is that such a description would have Western civilization start in, say, Spain or Morocco, rather than, say, Greece. I'm not particularly committed to how the rest of the opening paragraph should read, but I do know that the Eastern Mediterranean is much more closely associated with the roots of Western civilization than the Western Mediterranean is. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 03:08, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Opening paragraph 

message: While the lead (somewhat condescendingly?) actually acknowledges them, the treatment in the body of the article of the non English-speaking Americas after independence is absolutely mindblowing (one single mention compartmentalized within "Rise of the English-speaking world: 1815–1870#United States: 1815–1870" together with the mention of a peripheral vision accounting for attempts to influence in the area from the outside in "New Imperialism",  c'mon...).--Asqueladd (talk) 07:11, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Structural bias 

message: Can you parse this faster than I could? 
Other than in Russia, the European Empires disintegrated after World War II and civil rights movements and widescale multi-ethnic, multi-faith migrations to Europe, the Americas and Oceania lowered the earlier predominance of ethnic Europeans in Western culture.
Here's a crib sheet:
Other than in Russia, the European Empires disintegrated after World War II and kitchen-sink factors lowered the earlier predominance of ethnic Europeans in Western culture.
Concern for the reader is nowhere in evidence in this grammatical rucksack. — MaxEnt 23:17, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: Kitchen sink grammar