Talk:V. Gordon Childe

message: The article never actually mentions that he always (as far as I know) published under the style "Gordon Childe", dropping the "Vere". I couldn't see a way of putting it into the opening paragraph with making it too unwieldy. If someone can see a way of slipping it in nicely, please do, otherwise I'll have a go at some point.SamuelTheGhost (talk) 09:09, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Since then I've done so. SamuelTheGhost (talk) 19:49, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Except I've almost always seen him cited as V. Gordon Childe, not Gordon Childe, not Vere Gordon Childe, not Vere G. Childe, not V. G. Childe. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont]  ‹(-¿-)› 06:22, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  I agree.  It's almost always V. Gordon Childe.  It should be moved but it requires someone with admin-like powers.  --  Jack of Oz [your turn] 11:06, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

text: I don't understand that comparison.  I know in some places Shaw is called just "Bernard Shaw", but he's generally referred to by his full name.  Childe was only rarely known by his full name.  --  Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 10:44, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Shaw published as Bernard Shaw.--Jack Upland (talk) 03:25, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  The style of his name 

message: "Mountain climbing" is not performed in the Blue Mountains. It's use in this article is misleading. Childe may have been rock-climbing or bushwalking. But he was not mountain climbing.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.3.78.198 (talk) 06:24, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mountain climbing 

message: Childe did not invent the term or the concept of Neolithic revolution (see Three-age system), nor was he ever much interested in African archaeology, which in his time had developed a new system from the old. Changing these errors will entail minor changes to the intro. More seriously this raises the question of what if anything he did innovate. Also I have serious questions concerning the branding as Marxist archaeologist. I don't see a thing Marxist about Childe, regardless of his personal sometime affiliations. In fact, Engels and Marx favored Morgan, but Childe summarily dismissed MOrgan. Childe followed Sir John Lubbock, as did Sir John Evans and these men were assuredly in no way Marxist. The article looks nice on the surface. It may not stand up to invesigation. Right now I do not have the time to check it. Eventually I may. Meanwhile, why don't some of you go over it? I will make small corrections to the intro as far as I can for the moment.Dave (talk) 11:55, 28 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Mythical concepts about Childe

message: I query the following:
:The event [the invasion of Hungary] made Childe abandon faith in the Soviet leadership, but not in socialism and Marxism. Childe retained a love of the Soviet Union, visiting on multiple occasions, and he was involved with the Society for Cultural Relations with the USSR, a CPGB satellite body, being president of their National History and Archaeology Section from the early 1950s until his death.
The invasion was in 1956; he died in 1957.  He appears from the text to have visited the USSR in 1956, but not multiple times.  And the only significance here of his involvement in the society was that he didn't resign in 1956.--Jack Upland (talk) 05:19, 29 January 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Childe had indeed visited the USSR on multiple occasions; I will make some small alterations to the text in the article in an attempt to reflect your concerns. Thanks for bringing them up! Best, Midnightblueowl (talk) 13:14, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
replies: text:  As strange as it may be, the reference cited appears to fully back up the statements of the event in the article. "The event made Childe abandon faith in the Soviet leadership, but not in socialism and Marxism," is perhaps easy to misunderstand. His handling of the controversy was probably more subtle than anything, and unfortunately was probably tempered by his intention to refocus on "sorting out his affairs," handling unfinished business, and leaving final words (perhaps considering other matters of higher priority) before taking his life. He did specifically express his continued friendship with Palme Dutt and careful continued faith in the CCCP, if I'm reading it correctly, even as he reservedly expressed his disappointment over the invasion and criticized Dutt effectively shrugging it off. He did not leave the party because of the event as many did, nor did he sign a letter which had been signed by many leading Communists distancing themselves from the invasion. The book summarizes his views ultimately to be, "But he was deeply upset by the Russian action, and he lost his faith in Soviet Communism, though not his faith in communism itself, which was still his ideal." "Lost faith" could simply mean he no longer took things at face value, had his doubts about the leadership, and as it says in a quoted letter he wrote, "But of course one must not believe anything one reads—not even in the Daily Worker!" I've transcribed a large portion of the two relevant pages. If these are desired and there's a proper way to share them, let me know. djr13 (talk) 08:28, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

text: Oops, all that work and I forget to even make sure I'm answering the right question. :) Page xxi of the book says that he was "apparently" never a member. I misread the reference, which said many people left the party and then mentioned the letter he didn't sign. At most he probably admired the party despite often finding faults in it, though this would be a bit odd given his seeming ample opportunities to join it. After the German-Soviet pact, the book says he was "convinced that the dogmas of Fascism and of Marxism–Leninism could be equal threats to humanity," though this may have been primarily due to his opinion that the masses of people had an "epipalaeolithic mentality" which rapid political developments had overwhelmed. djr13 (talk) 10:49, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Soviet Union? 

message: :He consistently referred to the socialist states of eastern Europe by their full official titles, and called towns by their Slavonic rather than Germanic names, further confusing his students.
Did he really call all the states by their official titles, or is this referring to the German Democratic Republic and the USSR? Is the second part referring to Germany's changed borders after WW2, so that Danzig became Gdansk?--Jack Upland (talk) 05:32, 29 January 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I added such information on the basis of the published biography of Childe by Sally Green. If my memory serves me correctly, it wasn't just the USSR and GDR that he referred to under their full titles, but also such nation-states as the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Republic of Poland. With regard to the latter point, Childe would talk of "Warszawa" rather than "Warsaw", and "Praha" rather than "Prague", thus using the native Slavic names rather than their Germanic counterparts which his students (mostly being native Anglophone speakers) were familiar with. Best, Midnightblueowl (talk) 13:05, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: In that case I think it would be better to say, "their Slavic rather than their English names".  "Warsaw" and "Prague" aren't "Germanic names".--Jack Upland (talk) 10:42, 7 February 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, English is a Germanic language, but I take your point. "English" is far better here. Midnightblueowl (talk) 17:25, 10 February 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Eastern Europe? 

message: Edits I made to align the article's formatting to WP:MOS were reverted, with the following reasons:
* the previous mistakes were "longstanding" thus they should be kept;
* they reverted my edits so I am required to go to the talk page to discuss their reverts, rather than restore the changes with an edit description as I had done.
Proposal: the article should follow WP:MOS. djr13 (talk) 21:37, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Hello, Djr13. Thank you for opening up a talk page discussion as per the WP:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle. Part of my concern regarding your recent changes, and one of the reasons that I reverted them, is that they were undertaken unilaterally, with no attempt made to discuss them with longstanding contributors to the page on the Talk Page first. Nevertheless, we are here now, and that's what counts. As I understand it, you propose that the use of quotations in quote boxes should be removed from the article; this is despite the fact that they have served this article perfectly well for a long time and are a common sight on many GA and even FA-rated articles here at Wikipedia (for instance, you can see them in use on FA-rated articles devoted to Britain-based archaeologists like Margaret Murray and Mortimer Wheeler.) Clearly, there is nothing wrong with quote boxes, for if there were then they would never be permitted on FAs. Again, as I understand it, while removing the quote boxes you wish to keep the quotes inside them, but have them incorporated into the main prose of the article. I've consulted the "Block quotations" sub-section at WP:MOS and frankly I don't think that it supports what is being claimed of it; it stresses that longer quotations should be distinguished from the main article prose, but that is accomplished perfectly with quote boxes anyway. Moreover, I believe that quote boxes aligned to either the left or right are more aesthetically tidy than a quotation stuck into the middle of the article prose, dividing up paragraphs that otherwise flow into each other. Best, Midnightblueowl (talk) 10:33, 1 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Editor reverting changes to meet style guidelines 

message: Hi, I had read most of the article, and was intending to comment at FAC, but I've just missed it. Sorry about that - it is at worst nearly at FA quality. One point I would have made is that the article could do with a clearer  account of which parts of his thinking remain generally or widely accepted, and which don't.  Very useful for the lay reader. Please ping me if it returns to FAC. Johnbod (talk) 15:52, 14 March 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: - just to let you know, the article is back at FAC if you wanted to take a look. Midnightblueowl (talk) 11:18, 29 June 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Post FAC comments 

message: Hi,
The Internet Archive has books authored by V. Gordon Childe  here. I would like to add the code:
However, there is no External Links section. Being an FA, I would like to ask where should I place this code? Thanks in advance for guidance.
AshLin (talk) 14:02, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd recommend creating an External Links section at the bottom of the page and putting it in there. Midnightblueowl (talk) 17:11, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, I'll wait for 72 hours for more opinions, and if there is consensus or no further input or objection, I'll add it. AshLin (talk) 08:46, 12 March 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Where to place Internet Archive link to books by V. Gordon Childe 

message: Why are there two bibliography sections? The arrangement is very confusing. The first section includes only publications by Childe, but the second is a mixture of publications by Chile and those by other authors. I want to add a citation to the Skara Brae guide (HMSO), authored by Childe, but don't know where to put it! Is there a rationale for the division? If not it would seem logical to have a biblio section, which has all the works authored by Childe, and a Further Reading section, which has those works by other authors that are not specifically referenced in the article. Thoughts? Kognos (talk) 18:07, 28 September 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Good point. I've changed the first bibliography section to "selected publications" (listing works by Childe). New references should go in the remaining bibliography section (under references) with the  template used to generate the citation as a footnote. – Joe (talk) 19:02, 28 September 2019 (UTC)
replies: text:  Good, that makes more sense. I've added the Skara Brae guide-book in the first section, as it is not specifically cited in the article. A lot of Childe's work is now available as full-text, and I'll be adding links to the sources as I find them.Kognos (talk) 10:56, 29 September 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bibliography 

message: Hi . Re my mention of his influence on two significant Australian archaeologists (in particular Mulvaney, whose current Wikipedia entry doesn't do justice to his work or influence), I think it justified in the Legacy section. There's quite a lot more in the Griffiths book about Childe - too much to quote at length here, but relating to his enormous influence on Australian archaeology and the study of prehistory (and a bit about the politics). Mulvaney compared The Dawn of European Civilisation with On the Origin of Species in its impact on his field. Griffiths says Childe "passed the baton" of the synthesis of Australian prehistory to Mulvaney. Childe wrote that Mulvaney was "the only man with first class techniques to tackle" the "urgent need" to "make a serious study of South Pacific archaeology", etc. So his influence was huge. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 13:15, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi Laterthanyouthink and thank you for your message. I think that we could potentially use a quote about Childe from Griffiths' Deep Time Dreaming, so long as it was properly cited and formatted. However, I think that the text which I removed was not really ideal, especially for an FA rated article. Stating that a book makes reference to Childe, and then not even citing that book directly, does not really add anything of substance. It would seems to be trivia. Midnightblueowl (talk) 10:09, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi  and thanks for getting back to me. I did mention his influence on Mulvaney in the edit, but I agree it was rather slight and could be improved. (I was busy with several other things at the same time, so not really focussed on Childe at the time.) I'll have another go at it later. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 05:01, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: As the "Legacy and influence" section already explains well, Childe was by far the most influential archaeologist of his generation and possibly the entire 20th century. Including individual scholars he influenced would make this section very long indeed. But maybe something on his impact on Australian archaeology more generally, if that's covered in the Griffiths book, would be a valuable addition. – Joe (talk) 06:39, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
thread_title: Revert

message: When was "the summer of 1956"? The subject was Australian,so maybe January? December? But he was based in the UK at the time, so according to the different definitions of summer, it could have been June? July? August? September? I think it would be better on balance just to give the actual date, as suggested in WP:SEASON. --86.174.130.83 (talk) 20:01, 19 October 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: In the meantime I've changed it to "mid-1956" on the assumption that the northern summer is what was meant. --2A00:23C5:6103:9700:4515:4838:9AE3:2CBD (talk) 16:52, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  "the summer of 1956" 

message: In the introduction, please change
 the far-left Industrial Workers of the World
to
 a far-left labour union, the Industrial Workers of the World
Without "labour union" it sounds like a political party. 64.203.186.92 (talk) 20:12, 19 October 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it is misleading to call it a "labour union". See the discussion above.--Jack Upland (talk) 21:11, 19 October 2020 (UTC)
replies: text:  Industrial Workers of the World does call them a union. Since there's some disagreement, I'm going to insert "labour organisation" into this article as I think an identifier helps readers here. ◢  Ganbaruby!  (Say hi!) 01:39, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
replies: text:  and others: what do you think the IWW actually is?--Jack Upland (talk) 02:51, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
replies: text:  A labor organization, for starters. ◢  Ganbaruby!  (Say hi!) 02:57, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: But what does that actually mean ? I'm not clear if this is a disagreement about the words used or the substance of the organisation.--Jack Upland (talk) 03:02, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
replies: text:  You tell me; I have no idea what the IWW is, hence the intentional wording. To my understanding, "union" has a specific meaning while "organization" does not. I have no problem with the use of the word "union" here, but since I saw that there's disagreement here from the past and from you, I chose this particular wording. ◢  Ganbaruby!  (Say hi!) 08:55, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks. I think the IWW is a syndicalist organisation. For some reason, editors at the IWW article have toned down the historical reality. I don't understand why. According the previous discussion, the IWW worked within existing unions in Australia and did not set up a separate union. At the time Childe had joined it, it had been banned by the Unlawful Associations Act 1916, after its campaigning against WW1, the trial of the Sydney Twelve for conspiracy, and the murder of a policeman in Tottenham, New South Wales. Members were liable for six months jail. I think in the context, it is misleading to say that Childe joined a "labour union". "Labour organisation" is better, but it is very vague. With regard to the original post, what exactly is wrong with it sounding like a "political party"? It seems that in Australia it was taking part in politics, rather than simply labour relations (industrial relations or whatever you want to call it).--Jack Upland (talk) 22:53, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Semi-protected edit request on 19 October 2020