Talk:Edward E. Baptist

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Deletion of content critical of the 'Half Has Never Been Told'

The following text was deleted:

A number of economic historians have been critical of The Half Has Never Been Told.^[1]^[2]^[3]^[4]^[5]^[6]^[7]^[8]

There is absolutely no reason for deleting the text. It is accurate and the sources cited are all high-quality reliable academic sources. It's one goddamn sentence. The text doesn't even get into the ridiculous errors that Baptist makes in the book. If other editors believe that there are positive reviews out there, go ahead and add those. Don't delete reliably sourced content and demand that other editors do the work that you are too lazy to do yourself. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 22:24, 7 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ pseudoerasmus (2015-11-05). "The Baptist Question Redux: Emancipation & Cotton Productivity". pseudoerasmus. Retrieved 2017-06-07.
^ Burnard, Trevor (2015-01-02). "'The Righteous Will Shine Like the Sun': Writing an Evocative History of Antebellum American Slavery". Slavery & Abolition. 36 (1): 180–185. doi:10.1080/0144039X.2015.1009239. ISSN 0144-039X.
^ Clegg, John J. (2015). "Capitalism and Slavery". Critical Historical Studies. 2 (2): 281–304. doi:10.1086/683036.
^ pseudoerasmus (2014-09-12). "Baptism by Blood Cotton". pseudoerasmus. Retrieved 2017-06-07.
^ Murray, John E.; Olmstead, Alan L.; Logan, Trevon D.; Pritchett, Jonathan B.; Rousseau, Peter L. (2015/09). "The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism. By Baptist Edward E. . New York: Basic Books, 2014. Pp. xxvii, 498. $35.00, cloth". The Journal of Economic History. 75 (3): 919–931. doi:10.1017/S0022050715000996. ISSN 0022-0507. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
^ pseudoerasmus (2014-11-10). "Was slavery necessary for the Industrial Revolution ?". pseudoerasmus. Retrieved 2017-06-07.
^ pseudoerasmus (2014-09-12). "Baptism by Blood Cotton". pseudoerasmus. Retrieved 2017-06-07.
^ Engerman, Stanley L. (2017/6). "Review of The Business of Slavery and the Rise of American Capitalism, 1815–1860 by Calvin Schermerhorn and The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism by Edward E. Baptist". Journal of Economic Literature. 55 (2): 637–643. doi:10.1257/jel.20151334. ISSN 0022-0515. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

You should review WP:BLPSTYLE and you will see why your additions are problematic for a BLP. Undue weight is given to cherry-picked negative reviews of the book (even though more positive or neutral reviews are readily available online, for example, these in The New York Times The Los Angeles Times and The Journal of American history). Adding 8 citations after "one goddamn sentence" is excessive; at least half of those are from the same economics blog. This appears to aggressive POV-pushing to me, which is a big no-no on BLP articles. Before any review section for his book is added to the article (and it would honestly be more appropriate for a wiki article on the book itself, not Baptist's wiki article) a drafted version should be posted here to make sure it is balanced and meets the criteria of a BLP.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 23:07, 7 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Add those reviews to the article. Don't ask me to do your work for you. By the way, Foner and Berry are not economic historians, and Tobar is a journalist, so they don't negate anything that I added or show that I slanted the sentence on where Baptist's stands among economic historians. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 23:15, 7 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It is not the responsibility of either myself or other editors on Wikipedia to balance your blatant POV-pushing by adding opposing viewpoints, it is YOUR responsibility to not add such biased material to a BLP in the first place! If you had read the policy I linked above, you would know this. Let me quote the portion relevant to this discussion: "The idea expressed in Wikipedia:Eventualism—that every Wikipedia article is a work in progress, and that it is therefore okay for an article to be temporarily unbalanced because it will eventually be brought into shape—does not apply to biographies. Given their potential impact on biography subjects' lives, biographies must be fair to their subjects at all times."--C.J. Griffin (talk) 00:10, 8 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

There is nothing unbalanced about the content I added. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 01:02, 8 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It's worth pointing out that full four of the sources Snooganssnoogans has cited are not only from a single blog, but that blog is not particularly notable. (I.e., not the blog of a widely-cited authority writing under his own name, and/or in connection with a notable institution.)

That Baptist's book has attracted debunkers is historical fact. (Let's face it; in our day any statement of any perspective immediately touches off a torrent of ego-driven naysaying. And The Half Has Never Been Told is explosive material.) However, not all criticism is equal. WP's policy and culture have been to defer to considered, balanced critics, moderated by institutional control. The fact that "pseudoerasmus" writes independently doesn't mean his analysis is unreliable, but it does mean that reliability can't be quantified. And that's why he can't be cited to back up a contention here.

The statement in the current article, "The Half Has Never Been Told received mixed reviews from academics", is not accurate. The book has been overwhelmingly accepted by the academic consensus, with some typical correctives on the margins. Those correctives are a necessary part of academia, and worthy of mention here. But to characterise the formal reception of this work as "mixed" is disingenuous at best. That suggests Baptist's fellow scholars are about half and half on his theses, and that is frankly a lie. Laodah 18:01, 13 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It has not been overwhelmingly accepted by academics. Reviews by historians are generally positive. Reviews by economic historians are extremely negative, to the point of accusing Baptist of not understanding basic economic concepts, cherry-picking evidence, and even inventing ideas with no evidence (Olmstead alleges that the "pushing system" in the South is an invention). I've updated the description of the reception to make this divergence in responses clear, and to explain some of the economic historians' objections. -Thucydides411 (talk) 14:50, 17 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

[1] seudoerasmus (2015-11-05). "The Baptist Question Redux: Emancipation & Cotton Productivity". pseudoerasmus. Retrieved 2017-06-07.

[2] Burnard, Trevor (2015-01-02). "'The Righteous Will Shine Like the Sun': Writing an Evocative History of Antebellum American Slavery". Slavery & Abolition. 36 (1): 180–185. doi:10.1080/0144039X.2015.1009239. ISSN 0144-039X.

[3] Clegg, John J. (2015). "Capitalism and Slavery". Critical Historical Studies. 2 (2): 281–304. doi:10.1086/683036.

[4] seudoerasmus (2014-09-12). "Baptism by Blood Cotton". pseudoerasmus. Retrieved 2017-06-07.

[5] Murray, John E.; Olmstead, Alan L.; Logan, Trevon D.; Pritchett, Jonathan B.; Rousseau, Peter L. (2015/09). "The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism. By Baptist Edward E. . New York: Basic Books, 2014. Pp. xxvii, 498. $35.00, cloth". The Journal of Economic History. 75 (3): 919–931. doi:10.1017/S0022050715000996. ISSN 0022-0507. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

[6] seudoerasmus (2014-11-10). "Was slavery necessary for the Industrial Revolution ?". pseudoerasmus. Retrieved 2017-06-07.

[7] seudoerasmus (2014-09-12). "Baptism by Blood Cotton". pseudoerasmus. Retrieved 2017-06-07.

[8] Engerman, Stanley L. (2017/6). "Review of The Business of Slavery and the Rise of American Capitalism, 1815–1860 by Calvin Schermerhorn and The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism by Edward E. Baptist". Journal of Economic Literature. 55 (2): 637–643. doi:10.1257/jel.20151334. ISSN 0022-0515. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

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