Writing a Bibliography (examples of APA & MLA styles)
Writing a Bibliography (examples of APA & MLA styles)
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John Gee's Last Stand
I haven't seen much discussion of something very noteworthy that Bill Reel dropped last week on his Facebook feed - scans of John Gee's final words as editor of the Journal of the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities (JSSEA). What Gee wrote in his remarks is not about apologetics directly, but the connection to his apologetic studies is obvious; in fact, I think it is apparent in Gee's final words that apologetics are his first priority. All that being said, I should probably confess that, although the repercussions for Gee's style of apologetics are obvious in these scans, the actual reason I enjoy this stuff is less about detached academic curiosity, and probably something closer to the reasons my wife watches The Bachelor. The JSSEA is, as far as I can tell, a legitimate academic journal publishing in the field of Egyptology, based in Toronto. According to Gee's CV, he edited three volumes of this journal from 2008-2010. The final volume he edited (vol. 37) begins with some editorial remarks by Gee, an odd diatribe railing against the concept of peer review, titled "The Problem With Peer Review." Scan can be found here, but I am including a transcription:
The Problem with Peer Review Peer review is supposed to be an unalloyed good, but anyone who thinks so cannot have spent much time in the process. In theory peer review works as follows: A submission is received and the editor sends the submission without the name attached to one or more reviewers, each of whom is an expert in that subject. The reviewers independently recommend whether to accept the submission or suggest revisions. The reviewers do not know who wrote the paper and the author does not know who the reviewers are. If the paper does not pass muster, the editor is relieved of the responsibility of rejecting a friend's paper. In practice, however, there are numerous problems with peer review. Since Egyptology must cover four thousand years of human history and every facet of a complex civilization, Egyptologists must specialize of necessity. While the pool of Egyptologists is not very large, the number of peers in some specialized areas can in some cases be numbered on the fingers of one hand. In such small specialties, any reviewer who cannot figure out who the author is within a couple of minutes probably does not know enough to review the piece, and the same is true of an author who cannot discover who the reviewer is. If, as is true for some specialties, none of the specialists agree, it will simply not be possible to publish anything in a peer reviewed journal. Peer review can be manipulated for malicious purposes. Examples from other disciplines have gained some notoriety. Under such circumstances, peer review can actually impede progress in a discipline as it prevents publication of new ideas, or correction of mistakes. Because peer review is mostly anonymous and unremunerated work, there is no incentive for a peer reviewer to invest time or effort in it. As a result, some peer reviews are perfunctory without much thought or effort. I am aware of one papyrus published in an ostensibly peer-reviewed journal where the author cannot possibly have even read the papyrus he was publishing, but none of the reviewers even noticed showing that they cannot have read it either. This publication has been cited numerous times showing that none of the scholars citing the publication had bothered to read the papyrus either. This is clearly a failure of the review system. As part of the peer review process, reviewers sometimes make suggestions to improve the article. These suggestions should improve the article. Sometimes, however, they do not improve the article. At other times they would have improved the article but the author has chosen to reject them. Finally, one cannot edit a journal without stepping on various toes. I regret that I had to turn down many papers, including some written by friends. No personal slight was intended even if some was taken. It is understandable why a freshly graduated student might be justifiably proud of themselves. It must be so wearisome to work with mere mortals. Mere mortals might not be overawed with a freshly graduated student's certifiable brilliance (just look at the diploma) and might actually make editorial suggestions or have the temerity to question the logic of the argument. I apologize to those who were offended at the prospect of working with mere mortals. I am sorry for the inordinate delay in this issue. As one literary character expressed it, "I am afraid you have been long desiring my absence, nor have I any thing to plead in excuse of my stay."1 When an editor can no longer bring the Journal in on time, it is time to leave. I wish Katja Goebs the best as she takes over the helm of the JSSEA...
Wow, that's... really something. While I'm sure that many of the imperfections of peer review he cites are real, it is nevertheless surprising to me that he would finish his editorship in an academic journal with a rant that seems to imply the academic community would be better off without it, not to mention a weirdly sarcastic tangent apparently directed at some student whose article he must have rejected. I am also curious about this alleged incident where someone published in "an ostensibly peer-reviewed journal where the author cannot possibly have even read the papyrus he was publishing," which he claims is a failure of the peer review system. RfM speculated this is a reference to Robert Ritner's 2000 article published in Dialogue titled, "The 'Breathing Permit of Hor' Thirty-four Years Later." The article is an update to Klaus Baer's original translation of the named papyrus. As the article notes in the introduction, Baer's initial work was based on photographs, and Ritner's own update is based on newer color photographs, since the church hadn't published an official volume yet, and since the church did not grant much outside access to the actual papyrus. Although the essay itself is tangential to any apologetics on the Book of Abraham, there is some criticism of Gee's arguments therein, mostly in the footnotes. After reading the rest of Gee's remarks in his journal, I am inclined to agree with RfM that this is probably what Gee is referring to. So let's move on to Gee's next contribution to his final edited edition of this journal, a book review of The Libyan Anarchy: Inscriptions from Egypt's Third Intermediate Period by Robert Ritner. As many of us are aware, Ritner was once Gee's professor's, and there is a history between the two, much of it centered around Gee's apologetics on the Book of Abraham. The book being reviewed, however, apparently has nothing to do with the Book of Abraham. The scan of the review can be found here, but I will transcribe the text as well:
Robert K. Ritner, Jr., The Libyan Anarchy: Inscriptions from Egypt's Third Intermediate Period, [Writings of the Ancient World 21) (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2009). ISBN-13: 978-1-58983-174-2. xx + 622 pp. $59.95. For twenty years, the Society of Biblical Literature's series, Writings of the Ancient World has made available affordable and accurate translations of ancient texts that prove invaluable to students and professionals, especially ancient historians and biblical scholars who might not be proficient in the various languages. This book continues that series with translations of a number of texts from the Libyan period - the Egyptian time period contemporary with the bulk of the biblical narrative. Professor Ritner is generally a capable scholar, but has been known to badly misread the texts that he was proportedly (sic) publishing,24 so his translations and particularly his transliterations need to be checked against the original glyphs. The work under consideration shows that still to be the case. Professor Ritner translates nearly three hundred texts in his anthology but numbers them rather oddly so that it seems as though there are only about two hundred. Most Of this material is conveniently available in the more comprehensive work of Karl Jansen-Winkeln25 and Olivier Perdu26 neither of which does Ritner mention. Anyone who uses Ritner's work will want to have Jansen-Winkeln at his elbow. For example, Ritner's translation of the settlement text of Henuttawy (C) from the Tenth Pylon of Karnak (pp. 138-43) is missing significant portions of the text, which may be found in Jansen-Winkeln.27 The translations are adequate. Hyper-Polotskian translations often leave the impression that the text has been translated but not into English. The translator seems to have avoided the worst excesses of the Polotskians but the translations are still often awkward and mechanical. "This is one of Ritner's few positive contributions to the field, one not written with the primary intent of attacking someone, and he seems thoroughly bored. It is disappointing that Ritner's considerable verbal gifts vanish when he is not writing vitriol. Professor Ritner seems proud that his was the first Egyptological volume in the series Writings of the Ancient World to provide transliterations of the texts (p. 9). This would have been a real achievement if the transliterations were on the facing pages of the translations like those of the Other volumes of the series. Alas, such was not the case. Five pages of straight transliteration (pp. 88-92,349-53) followed by six or seven pages of translation (pp. 92-98, 353-58) becomes ludicrous besides useless. pinnacle is ten pages of straight transliteration (pp. 468-77). Think of the paper and ink wasted on pages that will scarcely be read! Without them the volume would have been much shorter, and probably significantly less expensive. Inclusion of the transliterations might have been helpful if the transliterations were accurate. Ritner's transliterations are generally an idealized view of the text as though they were written in the correct Middle Egyptian of a thousand years previously. But they were not, so the text in the transliteration often does not reflect what is written the hieroglyphs, and Ritner's transliterations suppress or distort numerous features of the contemporary language. Throughout the book brackets are so commonly misplaced that it is a wonder that they were included at all. The poor formatting can at least be explained by noting that Professor Ritner simply dumped material on Bob Buller who tried to pull together "a coherent manuscript" out of the mess that Ritner gave him (p. 10). Buller has spent an enormous amount of work on this volume and the fact that it is as good as it is says much to Buller's credit. Buller should be exonerated for the continuous type-setting problems such as not placing the transliterations and translations on facing pages, or the ubiquitous breaks of lines in the middle of the words. Professor Ritner should have caught some of those. It was simply beyond Buller's skill to make a silk purse out of the sow's ear that he had been given. The book appears in print a decade out of date. Only four works in the bibliography date after 1999. At one point, Ritner says that a book that came out five years before his did was too late to be considered (p. 193). Ritner only lists it as "Wilson 2005" but does not include it in the bibliography and so leaves follow-up impossible. Several times Ritner says that the "dimensions [are] not given" (pp. 66-67) even though they are in a book that he lists in his bibliography (p. 601) and published by the Oriental Institute where he works, but apparently could not bother to use as a basis for the inscriptions that he published from it. The numerous historical errors will lead those who are not specialists on Third Intermediate period studies astray. Here are a sampling: - Ritner provides a helpful genealogy of Ankhefenkhonsu (p. 16) showing the High Priest Menkhepere (conventionally 1035-986 B.c.) ten generations apart from Sheshonq 1 (924-889 B.C.). This would mean that if Ritner has reconstructed the genealogy correctly, then for ten generations, the men in this genealogy were consistently having children at the average age of eleven. Either Ritner's reconstruction is incorrect or the chronology of the Third Intermediate Period needs to be expanded on the order of a century. -Ritner often assigns rulers incorrectly. This is attributable to a number of reasons. Sometimes it simply reflects the uncertain nature of work on the Third Intermediate Period. Sometimes it reflects the inability or unwillingness to stay current in an active field. Sometimes it reflects carelessness. A few examples from the first seventy pages will suffice: - An inscription of Sheshonq Vla (Janssen-Winkeln's V II) is attributed to Sheshonq I (p. 34). - An unattributable inscription is attributed to Osorkon II (p. 36). - An inscription of Petubastis I is attributed to Sheshonq Ill (p. 37). - An inscription of Takeloth Ill is attributed to Osorkon Ill (p. 39). - An inscription of Osorkon II is attributed to Osorkon Ill (p. 40). - Inscriptions from different rulers are combined (p. 51). - An inscription of Sheshonq IV is attributed to Osorkon Ill (p. 57). - An inscription likely of Osorkon II is unattributed (p. 59). - A unattributable inscription of early Dynasty 22 is attributed to Osorkon I (p. 61). For this reason, Ritner's book needs to be used very carefully and everything should be double-checked. While the Twenty-First through Twenty-Fourth Dynasties can properly be called the Libyan period, and there is certainly Libyan influence, Ritner has a tendency to see influence when it is not actually there. Two examples will suffice. Ritner labels one individual a "Libyan Dynast" and reads his name 'Pk-wꜣ-iw- šꜣ(?)" (p. 79). He has misread the name, which is Pkwꜣrꜣwr, an odd spelling for the well-attested Egyptian name Pꜣ-krr. In one of the priestly annals, his insertion of the title "chief of the Man is simply his own invention surreptitiously inserted into a lacuna (p. 53). The preceding has been a mere sample of the hundred of errors that plague the volume. There seems little point wasting paper by listing all of them. In the end, this book constantly reminds the reader of Breasted's Ancient Records, a ground-breaking translation effort making many texts available for the first time in English, which unfortunately is out-of-date and in desperate need of revision. Breasted's work took at least half a century to achieve that feat, but Ritner's needed merely to roll off the press. While Egyptologists may find Professor Ritner's numerous mistakes amusing, no historian or biblical scholar should rely on his work. In that sense the volume defeats its purpose. John Gee
Wow! It's hard to know where to begin with a book review that's dripping with so much personal invective. The actual validity of his criticisms is well outside of my expertise, but I am reminded of when Gee published a similarly scathing review of Volume 4 of the Joseph Smith Papers Project. It looks like a pattern that when Gee perceives an enemy to his apologetic endeavors, he publishes scathing "proxy reviews" that don't address his underlying apologetic concerns, but which are clearly motivated by them. In the case of the JSPP volume 4, both Mormon and non-Mormon academics outside his circle of apologetic allies agreed that his criticisms were spurious. In searching for opinions from Ritner's peers on his book, I can only find one review from the Journal of the American Oriental Society, which is very positive, labelling it "expertly produced and efficiently organized," "extremely important for anyone researching the Egyptian Third Intermediate Period," and his translations "as fresh as they are up-to-date." Google scholar lists 96 citations of this work. But of special note is footnote 24, which is supposed to cite Gee's allegation that Robert Ritner "has been known to badly misread the texts that he was proportedly (sic) publishing." Some of you may have been wondering what egregious academic error he cites here that establishes such a poor reputation for poor Robert Ritner. Surely, if Gee is publishing such a hostile assessment of Ritner's abilities in an academic journal, he must be citing something substantial and widely accepted within the Egyptological community right? That's where this gets good. Following footnote 24, it turns out his citation is an article from freaking FARMS! In an Egyptological journal! I kid you not. He cites "Kerry Muhlestein, "The Book of Breathings in Its Place," FARMS Review 17/2 (2005):482-86." But we aren't done, because the cherry on top are the editorial remarks by Gee's successor, Katja Goebs, in the subsequent volume. I will transcribe her relevant remarks here:
2)Peer Review It is the conviction of the current editor and board that peer review is an indispensable, even if not infallible, factor in ensuring high academic standards. It has also become — at least in the North American context — a sine qua non for young scholars seeking to bolster their CVs when applying for grants and jobs. What is more, the referees' comments often furnish helpful additional materials and theoretical insights for author and editor. JSSEA will remain peer reviewed. ... 4) Book Reviews Recently, there has been some discussion about the appropriate level of criticism that might be conveyed in a review. Our Book Reviews Committee is committed to ensuring that a scholarly discussion of new academic works takes place that neither descends into insubstantial generalities, nor into angry personal vendettas. An apparent recent exception to this rule represents an oversight resulting from time-pressures shortly before publication of the issue in question.
Lol. I think this episode is valuable as a demonstration of why one should not mix apologetics with scholarship. Even though none of the content here is ostensibly about the Book of Abraham, it's all about the Book of Abraham, and that has seemingly compromised Gee's academic career. It's fine to defend one's faith on intellectual as well as faith-centered grounds, but the Interpreter-style apologetics frequently forgets that they cannot claim the authority of academic inquiry without adhering to its core precepts.
Your Guide To Humanities/Political Science ECs (Part 1)!
Hello everyone! My name is Rose and I am a senior this year. As my time in high school comes to an end, I wanted to share the information I’ve learned for any underclassmen who are interested in pursuing history/political science/humanities in college! I would like to credit u/AffectionateChairs and their CS ECs guide for the inspiration behind this post. Unfortunately, I’m afraid I will not be as eloquent as them in terms of phrasing. I would also like to thank the staff at Project Perses for writing/editing parts of this post as well. Before I begin, here are some of my qualifications so my advice doesn’t seem random (feel free to message me about any of this; I’d be more than happy to help any way I can):
National History Day 1st Place Winner (Senior Exhibit on the Carolina Gay Association)
Project Perses Oral Historian (“Project Perses is an oral history research project focused on the mission of sharing students’ experiences applying to college during the unique 2020-2021 admissions cycle.”)
Campaign “intern” for local election (I basically ran this campaign and our candidate won!)
Misc. experience in letter-writing/political advocacy campaigns (largely focused on immigrant and environmental issues)
Now, let’s get started! Background Knowledge To get started in politics or humanities extracurricular activities, you need to have a basic understanding of your niche. You need to understand the history of your field before you can apply it. Depending on how much you know, an introductory textbook on your field, Crash Course videos, and Wikipedia can be a great start. Let’s use philosophy as an example. If your niche is philosophy, get “The Philosophical Quest: A Cross-Cultural Reader” to study the works of prominent philosophers. Then, supplement your reading by studying theories like Aristotle’s virtue ethics or Kantian deontology (mhmm maxims!). Once you understand the history of philosophy, start hitting up Google Scholar. Find articles on the topics you’re interested in and start breaking them down. Whatever EC you hope to pursue, having background knowledge is essential. Often, humanities/politics students assume that background knowledge isn’t as important as it is for STEM students or believe that it’s just “common sense” (unfortunately you need to know a bit more than the definition of federalism to run a successful campaign). However, it is equally important for you to understand your field as it is for a budding programmer to understand a few cs languages. Research This is my ~favorite~ extracurricular! If you’re hoping to conduct research, the above information on background knowledge is all the more essential. Google Scholar browsing helped me finalize my topic and I learned lots of important information along the way. To fully explain how to get started in research, I have to separate humanities and social scientific research: 1.Humanities Research Research in the humanities is, in many ways, more accessible than STEM research. For more specialized fields and older topics, you’d definitely want a professor’s mentorship and university assistance/funding; however, if you’re looking to do research in less niche fields, like history, and newer topics (1950s and more recent), you can carry all of it out independently. Research in the humanities involves lots of primary sources, regardless of whether you’re studying classics, history, literature, philosophy, etc. I’ve always said that finding a local topic is key because most archives are much more accessible that way. Here are typical sources that research experts consider:
Primary source archives- often held at universities (look up “(university name) “rare books and manuscripts” or “university archives”) and sometimes, located at local historical centers.
Newspaper archives- sometimes held digitally, like DigitalNC, or housed at physical locations. (look up “(state/province/region name) newspaper archives”)
Oral Histories - can be found digitally, like SOHP, or at physical locations.
BOOKS! - biographies are wonderful secondary sources. Sometimes, reading historical fiction helps with understanding the overlying “themes” of a certain era you’re studying.
Theses and Dissertations- and any other university-sponsored research. Make sure to analyze your bibliographies to verify that your sources are credible (they often are but still).
When it comes to research in the humanities, you need to understand that there will be a lot of overlap in terms of methodology regardless of what specific field you pursue. So, whether you’re conducting research in Women and Gender Studies or English Literature, you’ll have a lot of the same sources. A good researcher accumulates a diverse collection of sources, from media to written documents to government data to etc. So don’t dismiss other forms of data and knowledge just because the traditional focus of your field lacks it. The staff at Project Perses and I actually have another post coming up that is just about humanities research so look out for that because that post will go over almost every little detail of conducting humanities research. 2. SocialScience Research Ah, politics. My muse. Political research heavily relies on a solid understanding of the social sciences. The methodology also changes here. You’re going to be asking more direct questions about how two things affect each other than trying to figure what happened at a certain event/to a certain person. I personally hate math but statistics is very important here. There are various books about applying stats to social science research but here’s a good introduction. Literature review is also essential here. Before you start working with data, start by analyzing the recent trends in your topic of choice by reading recent research from JSTOR or Google Scholar. If your goal is to understand how gerrymandering has affected voter turnout in (insert town/city/state), start by reading the general politics of your location. Has it been primarily Republican or Democrat? What are the demographics of this city’s population? Also, research how gerrymandering is even implemented. How do courts deal with gerrymandering? Essentially, start with your topic and ask branching questions. This part of polysci research is very similar to stem research methodology (at least, I think; I’m not a STEM person at all). Once you have all that done, get your hands into data! Are you trying to analyze how x affects voting? Then, start finding government data about voter turnout. If you are hoping to figure out how the economic downturns caused by the pandemic is affecting US citizens, find data on CPI changes in the recent months. Look at how various stocks have changed. Just like humanities research, social science research has a lot of overlap. The sources you use for econ or sociology research just might be the same ones you use for your political science research. So, just because someone wrote their Masters’s thesis for the Public Policy department doesn’t mean you can’t use it for your research on educational policy. Another thing to keep in mind is that the more background knowledge you have, the easier your research will be. If you knew from your reading that gerrymandering more often benefits Republicans than Democrats, then you’ll know to focus on analyzing how conservative candidates ran their campaigns and contrast it to how liberals did. Wow, this post is LONG! I’m going to stop here but look out for Part 2 where we’ll discuss political campaigns, competitions (like National History Day!), summer programs, and more. Leave any questions below or in my DMs and I’ll get back to you ASAP. P.S. If you’re interested in thanking us for the information we’ll be providing in the next few months, check out my account bio!
The British banning of Sri Lankan martial art angampora | historical fact or post-colonial myth?
The claim In 2019, a video circulated widely on social media, making the claim “A ban prohibiting the practice of the ancient Sri Lankan martial art Angampora has been lifted. Fighters will now be able to openly practise their art for the first time since 1817”. The video’s claim appears to be supported by Wikipedia’s article on Angampora, which says “The British, who occupied the whole island by 1815 (and who had full control of it by 1818) issued a gazette banning the practice in 1817 with harsh punishments for flouters, paving the way to its decline. This was because the British forces found it difficult to face the Sri Lankan revolutionaries who were practitioners of this art”. However, the only reference provided in support of this claim is a link to a non-scholarly newspaper article which does not cite any sources. Although the source cited in the Wikipedia article refers to a British “gazette” banning Angampora in 1817, this news article dates the ban to 1818. The discrepancy is minor, but the lack of detail encourages further investigation. Meanwhile, an Sri Lankan blog article on a different site says Angampora was used successfully in an uprising in 1818, and was then banned by a British gazette in 1827. According to one Sri Lankan news source, Air Marshall Kapila Jayampathy (Commander of Sri Lanka Air Force), recently requested the president of Sri Lanka to lift the ban on angampora, to which the president agreed. The Sri Lankan government website has made note of this, also making the claim of a ban on angampora in 1818. This would seem to give credence to the claim that the martial art was banned, and that it was banned in 1818. There is clearly a long standing belief that the British banned angampora in the nineteenth century, but exact date and circumstances under which this took place are obviously inconsistently reported. The years 1817, 1818, and 1827 have all been cited, with the Sri Lankan government itself regarding 1818 as the correct date. This post is eight pages long. If you'd rather watch a video of this content, go here. Commentary in scholarly literature Detailed references to this ban are not easy to find in academic literature. However, in 2017, an article by Edvard Šefer in the journal of Physical Culture and Sport, Studies and Research, made the claim in a more scholarly context. Šefer is a self-described engineer with a masters degree in engineering, who also wrote a PhD thesis on bunkai, the analysis and practical application of kata, the training exercises used in karate and other Japanese martial arts. Sefer’s article makes this claim.
After the British occupied the whole island of Sri Lanka in 1815, they banned the practice of Angampora in 1817. They burned down all of the practice huts they found and shot anybody found practicing this art in the knee.", Edvard Šefer, “The Purpose of Kata: When, Why, and for Whom Kata Forms Have Occurred in Okinawa,” Physical Culture and Sport, Studies and Research 76.1 (2017): 60
However, Šefer does not cite any sources for this claim, and his article’s bibliography does not reference any works at all on Angampora. Commentary in historical sources The Sri Lankan blog Tales of Ceylon dates the ban a year later, to 1818, and provides additional information, claiming it was enacted by British Governor Robert Brownrigg.
British Governor Robert Brownrigg realized the threat posed by Angam combat techniques, and issued a decree to ban Angampora. Those who defied the ban were punished, with some practitioners being shot in the knees to prevent them from passing on Angampora to younger generations.
This provides a useful historical lead to follow. Brownrigg oversaw the suppression of various rebellions in Sri Lanka (called Ceylon at the time), and his tenure as governor of Ceylon is well documented. Additionally, he is known specifically for a proclamation he made in the Ceylon Government Gazette number 851 on the first of January 1818, in which he declared nineteen Sri Lankans as criminals for their involvement in the Uva Wellassa Great Rebellion of 1817–1818. Brownrigg’s suppression of the rebellion was brutal, and in the province of Uva all males over the age of 18 were murdered. Several British historical sources document the rebellion and its suppression, and Brownrigg’s proclamation in the Ceylon Government Gazette of 1818 is cited and quoted.
John Davy, An Account of the Interior of Ceylon and of Its Inhabitants: With Travels In That Island From 1816 To 1820. With Notes OnGeography, Castes, Religion, Government, Crafts, Music And History (Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1821)
Charles Pridham, An Historical, Political, and Statistical Account of Ceylon and Its Dependencies (T. and W. Boone, 1849)
Herbert White, Manual of the Province of Uva (H. C. Cottle, 1893)
However, none of these sources say anything about Brownrigg banning angampora. The historical website “A Peoples’ History 1793 – 1844 from the newspapers”, contains a wealth of historical newspaper articles from all over the world. Of particular use in this case, is its extensive quotation from the Ceylon Government Gazette. Although the Gazette issues for 1816 and 1817 are missing, the website quotes the Gazette’s commentary on the rebellion in 1818. This source is particularly useful since it quotes from the Gazette issues of several months in 1818. Since the record is incomplete, it is not possible to check every issue for every month in 1818, to see if there was a proclamation banning angampora. Consequently, the fact that angampora is not mentioned in any of the Gazette records quoted for 1818 is not conclusive evidence against the idea that Brownrigg issued a Gazette proclamation banning it. Nevertheless, the information it does provide, certainly makes it unlikely that the British banned angampora because they felt threatened by this martial art. The proclamation for the 14th of February describes the difficulties the British army has in fighting against the provincial leader of the rebellion. However, it makes no mention of any danger from martial arts, saying instead “Our army is acting against him but the terrain is unsuitable for artillery and he moves more quickly than we can”. [1] The proclamation for the 18th of April is even more significant. This time it notes “The difficulty is that the rebels have the support of the people”, and indicates that the British forces are heavily outnumbered, before going on to say “Fortunately they are not skilled in war and use spears and arrows to fight against us. Only a few of our chaps have been hurt”. [2] This is important for three reasons. Firstly, if angampora was so dangerous to the British army that they felt the need to ban it after the rebellion, it is highly surprising that it is never cited as a threat even when they specifically describe difficulties encountered when fighting the Sri Lankans. Secondly, the fact that the proclamation says explicitly that the Sri Lankan forces “use spears and arrows to fight against us” suggests that angampora was used, but that the British simply didn’t even take notice of it specifically. Strictly speaking, the term angampora refers specifically to a form of unarmed combat, with other terms used to describe the Sri Lankan forms of combat with weapons, but angampora is also used as an umbrella term for both the traditional Sri Lankan unarmed martial art, and for the forms of martial art which incorporated various weapons, such as staves, daggers, swords, spears and a special kind of metal whip. It is certainly clear that if the Sri Lankans were using angampora the British either didn’t realise they were being confronted by a deadly martial art, or didn’t consider it sufficiently significant to even mention. This certainly contradicts the idea that they saw it as particularly dangerous. Thirdly, the fact that the record indicates the British considered the Sri Lankans weapons to be an insignificant threat, resulting in few casualties, makes it unlikely that the British felt in any way threatened by Sri Lankan soldiers using angampora, either with or without weapons. In fact the record is particularly dismissive of the Sri Lankan soldiers, saying “they are not skilled in war”. This is quite the opposite of the language we would expect if the British felt threatened by angampora. On the 21st of November 1818, Brownrigg issued a lengthy proclamation of 12 pages, containing 56 detailed clauses describing various laws to be enacted in response to the rebellion. However, there is no mention of angampora at all. [3] Other sources Curiously, it’s extremely difficult to find any detailed and well referenced information on this ban in published books, or scholarly articles. Additionally, it seems there are very few independent sources, with most copying the same phrasing found in numerous online articles. The earliest online reference to the ban seems to be an electronic reproduction of an article from the Sri Lankan Daily Mirror’s ‘Sports Weekly’ magazine. The original article was published on the 17th of September 2004, and was posted on the website livingheritage.org on the 4th of November 2004. The article contains the basic information found in numerous sources which date after 2004, claiming the British banned angampora in 1817 after a rebellion, and anyone breaking the ban was shot below the knee. Not only does this seem to be the earliest online reference to the ban, it also seems to be the earliest reference to the penalty of being shot below the knee, which is found in subsequent sources. Additional historical information Thus far, the meme seems to be historically unsubstantiated, if not actually debunked. However, it does seem strange that it is so widely disseminated, and even though the details differ in various aspects from source to source, there does seem to be a reasonably consistent agreement that angampora was banned by the British during 1817 or 1818, under the governorship of Robert Brownrigg. Consequently, although historical evidence for the ban is lacking, it still has the appearance of being based on some kind of historical event. On the 10th of March 2019, an article in the Sri Lankan Sunday Observer presented a typical summary of the account of the angampora ban, dating it to 1818 as a response to the Uva-Wellessa rebellion, attributing it to Governor Robert Brownrigg, claiming it was because “angampora managed to inflict pain and death on the invading British”, and repeating the assertion that practitioners were shot in the knee. Interestingly, this article drew a response from another writer casting doubt on angampora's supposed "5,000 years of combat tradition", arguing angampora could not possibly be this old, and presenting evidence that angampora was not an indigenous Sri Lankan martial art, but an imported skill from South India. As might be expected, this article was accompanied by lengthy heated discussion in the comments section. While this article did not comment on the supposed British ban of angampora, it did demonstrate that some of angampora's historical claims were vulnerable to historical scrutiny. However, the original article being criticized provided some additional information which isn’t part of the usual story, claiming that instead of being eradicated, angampora continued to be taught secretly, “by two main clans Sudaliya and Maruwalliya”. This provided another lead to follow. Alleged evidence for the ban in a historical document Following up this reference to the two clans leads to an article published on the 19th of June 2008, by photographer and film producer Reza Akram, on the website behance.net. Akram repeats the claim that angampora “was outlawed and systematically driven to decline after 1818 (exactly 200 years ago) by the British”. Most importantly Akram’s article includes a photograph of a historical document which he describes as containing the actual text of the ban. Under this photo he attributes the ban to Governor Robert Brownrigg, and states explicitly that it was directed against “the Sudaliya and Maruwaliya Angam lineages who were responsible for training the King’s armies”.
"The British decree (pictured) to ban Angampora came in the wake of the Uva-Wellassa freedom fight in 1818. The freedom fight was headed by noblemen such as Monaravila Keppetipola and other noblemen who were distinguished Angampora warriors. The order by Governor Robert Brownrigg was executed by John D’Oyly, effectively cracking down on the Sudaliya and Maruwaliya Angam lineages who were responsible for training the King's armies. This decree signalled the rapid decline of Angampora over the following decades. This document is presently held at the National Archives in Kew, London.", Reza Akram, “ANGAMPORA: The Deadly Ancient Legacy of Sri Lanka,” Behance, 19 June 2018
Finally we have a historical document relevant to the claim of the ban on Angampora. However, a close reading of the document reveals that it does not match Akram’s claim directly. The document is a nineteenth century text, handwritten in a cursive style, but the size of the image makes it quite readable. The relevant section of the text is here.
That the office of Sudalyua Mohandiram and Mawrwaleya Mohandiram * are unnecessary and may be abolished, the People of those Departments being assigned to the Naha Wasame – * Chiefs of Gladiators
In the text there is an asterisk beside the names of the offices, and a marginal note clarifies that these are “Chiefs of Gladiators”. This is a remarkably short statement for a supposedly influential ban on angampora. Additionally, it doesn’t even mention angampora, nor does it say angampora is banned, nor does it mention any penalty for teaching angampora. Akram’s description of this text is at least partially correct. He says “The order by Governor Robert Brownrigg was executed by John D'Oyly, effectively cracking down on the Sudaliya and Maruwaliya Angam lineages who were responsible for training the King’s armies”. However, what does this actually mean? How does Akram derive a ban on angampora from this text? The answer lies in the meaning of the marginal note, which clarifies that the two offices which are to be abolished are the “Chiefs of Gladiators”. Akram notes that these are also references to two different clans which taught angampora. He has concluded from this text that the Governor Brownrigg’s abolition of the officers of these two clan leaders, who were Chiefs of Gladiators, constitutes a ban on angampora. But to what extent is this a valid conclusion? The position of Mohandiram, typically written today in English as Muhandiram, was actually introduced by the Portuguese, during their colonization of Ceylon in the seventeenth century. These positions were granted to the leaders of tribes and clans, making them responsible for certain administrative functions. By the time of the British occupation of Ceylon in the nineteenth century, this system was very well established, and was consequently adopted by the British colonial government. So what does the document mean when it says the Sudaliya Muhandiram and Maruwaliya Muhandiram were Chiefs of Gladiators, and that their positions would now be abolished? The term Chiefs of Gladiators indicates that the men in these two positions, from two different clans, were responsible for training Sri Lankan soldiers. Akram rightly says that they would have been responsible for training them specifically in the art of angampora. From this, Akram derives the conclusion that the British abolition of these two positions was a complete ban on anyone being taught angampora. We might object that the text doesn’t actually talk about such an absolute ban, but it does seem Akram is on reasonably firm ground to infer that this was the intention of the abolition of these two positions. This seems like a reasonable conclusion, but it is contradicted by two lines of historical evidence. Ironically, one of them is in the very document Akram cites. Let’s look at it again.
That the office of Sudalyua Mohandiram and Mawrwaleya Mohandiram * are unnecessary and may be abolished, the People of those Departments being assigned to the Naha Wasame – * Chiefs of Gladiators
It clearly says that the positions of the Chiefs of Gladiators would be abolished, but it also says “the People of those Departments being assigned to the Naha Wasame”. So these Chiefs of Gladiators were indeed administrative officials, equivalent to heads of departments, and although their positions are being abolished, the people under them are simply being re-assigned to a different department. There is no hint that the people assisting these two officials are also being disbanded or their work abolished. Still, we could infer that the transfer of the staff under these officials was intended to stamp out the teaching of angampora. However, in the very next paragraph of the document, we find evidence against this. The next paragraph contains almost identical wording, saying “That the office of Kottalbade Nilame is unnecessary and may be abolished, the People of that Department remaining under the orders of their Headman only and of the Revenue Agent”.
That the office of Kottalbade Nilame * is unnecessary and may be abolished, the People of that Department remaining under the orders of their Headman only and of the Revenue Agent - * Chief of Artificers
In this case there is an asterisk beside the title Kottalbade Nilame, and a marginal note explains that this position is “Chief of Artificers”. This was the officer in charge of the palace craftsmen. Again, it is noteworthy that although this administrative position is being abolished, the text states explicitly that the department of craftsmen itself, and all the people working under it, will continue to work under the leadership of their clan headmen and the Revenue Agent, who was possibly British. This is significant, because although the palace craftsmen were mainly carpenters, painters, stone masons, and jewelers, a number of them were blacksmiths and other metal workers who were specifically responsible for making traditional Sri Lankan weapons, as well as modern British firearms. Clearly the British saw no danger in allowing the palace craftsmen to continue their work of making weapons, and the only change made was the abolition of an administrative appointment resulting in a slight change of leadership. For the palace craftsmen, only the head of their department was changed, while their regular work continued. From this it is clear that the document cited by Reza Akram is not speaking of any ban on angampora, but of mundane governmental and administrative changes which typically involved streamlining departments by abolishing unnecessary leaders, and shuffling staff. Another historical source There is additional historical information indicating that Akram’s interpretation of this document is inaccurate. In a book published in 1821, entitled “An Account of the Interior of Ceylon and of Its Inhabitants”, English chemist John Davy, brother of the much more famous chemist Sir Humphrey Davy, wrote a historical account of the history of Ceylon, as it was then called, while he was stationed there as a member of the army’s medical staff, from 1816 to 1820. Consequently, he was both an eyewitness and historian of the events of the Uva-Wallessa uprising, its brutal suppression by the British, and the various government proclamations and rulings which were enacted subsequently. Very importantly, Davy identifies the role of these Chiefs of Gladiators, explains their historical function, and describes the actual reason for their abolition. The relevant information is found in a chapter entitled Old Form of Government, in which he describes the changes of government enforced by the British after the suppression of the Uva-Wallessa uprising. On page 138 he starts a list of “Officers of the Palace”. Within this long list, on page 139, he lists the Sudaliya Muhandiram and Maruwaliya Muhandiram as positions which existed as Officers of the Palace under the old form of government.
OLD FORM OF GOVERNMENT. Koonam -madoowe lekam mahatmeya. Soodalia mohandiram nilami. Mawroowaliye mohandiram nilami. [4]
This is extremely significant. It reveals that these two Chiefs of Gladiators were in fact only responsible for training the soldiers at the royal palace. They were not the only teachers of angampora, and they actually only taught a small number of soldiers. Very usefully, Davy’s historical account explains why they were called the Chiefs of Gladiators. On pages 155 and 156, he explains that the terms Sudaliya and Maruwaliya refer to ethnic or clan divisions within the Sri Lankan people themselves, adding that these two Chiefs of Gladiators both “commanded a class of fencers; one called Sudaliya and the other Mawruwalia”.
"The Soodalia mohandiram nilami, and Mawroowalia mohan diram nilami, each commanded a class of fencers; one called Soodalia, and the other Mawroowalia , terms, the meaning of which I could not ascertain, and which were also applied to the people generally, the whole country having been formerly divided between the two parties." [5]
This confirms that these Chiefs of Gladiators were only responsible for training angampora warriors in the palace. Additionally, Davy provides an explanation for the use of the term “gladiators”. The actual role of the Chiefs of Gladiators was to train soldiers in the art of angampora, in order to fight with each other in single combat, for the entertainment of the king and his court. Davy says “their engagements were single combats, either with the fist, or with sword and shield, or with clubs”, adding “Formerly they exhibited before the court like gladiators, endeavouring to draw blood and inflict wounds”. [6] So these Chiefs of Gladiators were only training Sri Lankan soldiers in angampora for the benefit of the king and his court. They were not training men for the army, nor were they training the average civilian. Consequently, the abolition of their position only affected the king and his court. Most importantly, Davy provides the reason why the Chiefs of Gladiators were abolished. It was because the British government decided to end the custom of angampora warriors fighting for the entertainment of the royalty and social elites at the palace, since it led to fights between the two clans led by the two opposing Chiefs of Gladiators. Davy writes “The bloody combat was discontinued, as it gave rise to serious quarrels and feuds amongst the people”. [7] It is now clear why the Chiefs of Gladiators were abolished. It was not because the British feared the danger of angampora as a martial art; in fact there is no evidence that they even identified it as a specific martial tradition. Nor was it because the British feared the danger of a Sri Lankan army well trained in angampora; in fact their casual dismissal of the weapons of the Sri Lankan warriors makes it clear they considered them an insignificant threat. It was explicitly because the gladiatorial style combat between two warriors of opposing clans, repeatedly caused civil unrest and fighting between those clans. So Reza Akram’s interpretation of the historical document he cites, is inaccurate. The document does not contain any reference to a ban on angampora, and the abolition of administrative positions it does describe, was intended to affect, very specifically, the gladiatorial combat which took place at the palace. There is no evidence that it was ever intended to constitute or encourage a general ban on angampora, which is not even mentioned in the text. Significantly, there is no mention of any penalty for anyone teaching angampora, and certainly no mention of a threat of being shot in the knee for attempting to learn it. One additional item of information provided by Davy’s historical record, is completely incompatible with the claim that angampora was banned in 1818. After explaining the reason for the abolition of the gladiatorial combat at the palace, Davy makes it clear that on both the Sudaliya and Maruwaliya sides, other teachers of angampora existed all through the country. He writes “Of each set of fencers {that is, on both the Sudaliya and Maruwaliya sides} there were ten maitres d’armes in different parts of the country to give lessons to all who wished to learn their art”. [8] So even after the positions of the Chiefs of Gladiators were abolished, there were still plenty of angampora masters all through the country, continuing to teach the art to anyone interested. Davy never mentions any kind of restriction on this teaching, nor any penalties inflicted for people seeking to learn it. Conclusion It appears there is no historical support for the claim that angampora was ever banned by the British. Perhaps there is some evidence, somewhere, but it is remarkable that virtually no source making the claim ever provides any evidence for it, and it is even more remarkable that the only historical document which is cited as evidence, does not support this interpretation. The claims of a vicious crackdown involving the deliberate laming of practitioners by shooting them in the knee, and British fears of angampora as a lethal martial art which inflicted serious casualties on their soldiers, are definitely unsubstantiated. Given that the British are on record as having murdered all males over the age of 18 in their suppression of the Uva-Wallessa uprising, a fact attested to by multiple historical sources, including British records, it is curious that there seems to be no historical evidence for the far milder punishment of a bullet in the knee. So how did this story even get started? Well, the case of the mysterious ban on angampora is not unique. Historically, nationalist groups seeking to revive interest in ethnic heritage and raise patriotic fervor, have made false claims of colonial era bans or restrictions on cultural practices. As an example, the claim that the British banned, persecuted, and even executed Indian practitioners of yoga, is not historically accurate but has had the effect of raising awareness of yoga and encouraging more people to participate in it, while also firing up national pride. The sudden appearance of references to this ban in 2004, followed by its ceremonial removal by the government in 2019, suggests strongly (if not conclusively), that this entire story was based on a misunderstanding of a historical source, which was later amplified by nationalistic fervor and an over-enthusiastic attempt to reconstruct and revive and ancient cultural practice. In many ways this is a typical chapter in the history of post-colonial nations. It is also a very typical event in the process of de-colonization, which often involves reconstructing or simply re-inventing, national and cultural history to serve the new needs and goals of contemporary people.
An Incomplete Anthology of Anarchist Books, Writings, and Other Resources
I was feeling anxious about posting this for the longest time because I felt that I couldn't until it felt "complete" enough. However I think the beauty of this project is that it will never truly be "complete" in the sense that I can never add all the anarchist resources that currently exist, but also in recognition of the fact that there will and should be many more works to come. Anyways, feel free to make suggestions in the comments section (including a link, please) and I'll make sure to add them over time.
An Incomplete Anthology of Anarchist Books, Writings, and Other Resources
I was feeling anxious about posting this for the longest time because I felt that I couldn't until it felt "complete" enough. However I think the beauty of this project is that it will never truly be "complete" in the sense that I can never add all the anarchist resources that currently exist, but also in recognition of the fact that there will and should be many more works to come. Anyways, feel free to make suggestions in the comments section (including a link, please) and I'll make sure to add them over time.
Books on Epistemology, Critical thinking, beliefs etc - A comprehensive list
A comprehensive list of books that might be of interest to people whom want to, or do practice SE. They can also work as book recommendations for people whom you have spoken to, that want to read something that might improve their thinking or as gifts. I have not read most of these, thus I can not personally vouch for them or recommend one over the other. But if you do read any of them, or have any opinion it would be nice if you could create a post. I'm not affiliated with Goodreads, but linked to them since they have links to several sources including libraries if you want to get any one of these, and often some quality reviews. How to Have Impossible Conversations: A Very Practical Guide https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43885240-how-to-have-impossible-conversations by Peter Boghossian (Goodreads Author), James A. Lindsay (Goodreads Author) 3.99 · Rating details · 928 ratings "This is a self-help book on how to argue effectively, conciliate, and gently persuade. The authors admit to getting it wrong in their own past conversations. One by one, I recognize the same mistakes in me. The world would be a better place if everyone read this book." -- Richard Dawkins, author of Science in the Soul and Outgrowing God In our current political climate, it seems impossible to have a reasonable conversation with anyone who has a different opinion. Whether you're online, in a classroom, an office, a town hall -- or just hoping to get through a family dinner with a stubborn relative -- dialogue shuts down when perspectives clash. Heated debates often lead to insults and shaming, blocking any possibility of productive discourse. Everyone seems to be on a hair trigger. In How to Have Impossible Conversations, Peter Boghossian and James Lindsay guide you through the straightforward, practical, conversational techniques necessary for every successful conversation -- whether the issue is climate change, religious faith, gender identity, race, poverty, immigration, or gun control. Boghossian and Lindsay teach the subtle art of instilling doubts and opening minds. They cover everything from learning the fundamentals for good conversations to achieving expert-level techniques to deal with hardliners and extremists. This book is the manual everyone needs to foster a climate of civility, connection, and empathy. Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, Sheila Heen 4.10 · Rating details · 12,354 ratings https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/774088.Difficult_Conversations Whether you're dealing with an under performing employee, disagreeing with your spouse about money or child-rearing, negotiating with a difficult client, or simply saying "no," or "I'm sorry," or "I love you," we attempt or avoid difficult conversation every day. Based on fifteen years of research at the Harvard Negotiation Project, Difficult Conversations walks you through a step-by-step proven approach to having your toughest conversations with less stress and more success. You will learn: -- how to start the conversation without defensiveness -- why what is not said is as important as what is -- ways of keeping and regaining your balance in the face of attacks and accusations -- how to decipher the underlying structure of every difficult conversation Filled with examples from everyday life, Difficult Conversations will help you on your job, at home, or out of the world. It is a book you will turn to again and again for advice, practical skills, and reassurance. The Thinker's Guide to Socratic Questioning by Dr. Linda Elder https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7276284-the-thinker-s-guide-to-socratic-questioning Focuses on the mechanics of Socratic dialogue, on the conceptual tools that critical thinking brings to Socratic dialogue, and on the importance of questioning in cultivating the disciplined mind. About author: Dr. Linda Elder is an educational psychologist and a prominent authority on critical thinking. She is President of the Foundation for Critical Thinking and Executive Director of the Center for Critical Thinking. From a review: "...it is primarily a set of instructions detailing how to lead a Socratic dialog among (different ages of) K-12 students." -Feliks A Manual for Creating Atheists by Peter Boghossian (Goodreads Author), Michael Shermer (Foreword) 3.93 · Rating details · 1,983 ratings https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17937621-a-manual-for-creating-atheists For thousands of years, the faithful have honed proselytizing strategies and talked people into believing the truth of one holy book or another. Indeed, the faithful often view converting others as an obligation of their faith—and are trained from an early age to spread their unique brand of religion. The result is a world broken in large part by unquestioned faith. As an urgently needed counter to this tried-and-true tradition of religious evangelism, A Manual for Creating Atheists offers the first-ever guide not for talking people into faith—but for talking them out of it. Peter Boghossian draws on the tools he has developed and used for more than twenty years as a philosopher and educator to teach how to engage the faithful in conversations that will help them value reason and rationality, cast doubt on their religious beliefs, mistrust their faith, abandon superstition, and irrationality, and ultimately embrace reason. The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths by Michael Shermer 3.93 · Rating details · 6,985 ratings https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9754534-the-believing-brain The Believing Brain is bestselling author Michael Shermer's comprehensive and provocative theory on how beliefs are born, formed, reinforced, challenged, changed, and extinguished. In this work synthesizing thirty years of research, psychologist, historian of science, and the world's best-known skeptic Michael Shermer upends the traditional thinking about how humans form beliefs about the world. Simply put, beliefs come first and explanations for beliefs follow. The brain, Shermer argues, is a belief engine. From sensory data flowing in through the senses, the brain naturally begins to look for and find patterns, and then infuses those patterns with meaning. Our brains connect the dots of our world into meaningful patterns that explain why things happen, and these patterns become beliefs. Once beliefs are formed the brain begins to look for and find confirmatory evidence in support of those beliefs, which accelerates the process of reinforcing them, and round and round the process goes in a positive-feedback loop of belief confirmation. Shermer outlines the numerous cognitive tools our brains engage to reinforce our beliefs as truths. Interlaced with his theory of belief, Shermer provides countless real-world examples of how this process operates, from politics, economics, and religion to conspiracy theories, the supernatural, and the paranormal. Ultimately, he demonstrates why science is the best tool ever devised to determine whether or not a belief matches reality. Critical Thinking: Tools for Taking Charge of Your Professional and Personal Life by Richard Paul,Linda Elder 3.93 · Rating details · 1,082 ratings https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17296839-critical-thinking Critical Thinking is about becoming a better thinker in every aspect of your life: in your career, and as a consumer, citizen, friend, parent, and lover. Discover the core skills of effective thinking; then analyze your own thought processes, identify weaknesses, and overcome them. Learn how to translate more effective thinking into better decisions, less frustration, more wealth Ñ and above all, greater confidence to pursue and achieve your most important goals in life. The Thinker's Guide to Analytic Thinking by Linda Elder,Richard Paul 3.89 · Rating details · 163 ratings https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19227921-the-thinker-s-guide-to-analytic-thinking This guide focuses on the intellectual skills that enable one to analyze anything one might think about - questions, problems, disciplines, subjects, etc. It provides the common denominator between all forms of analysis. It is based on the assumption that all reasoning can be taken apart and analyzed for quality. This guide introduces the elements of reasoning as implicit in all reasoning. It begins with this idea - that whenever we think, we think for a purpose, within a point of view, based on assumptions, leading to implications and consequences. We use data, facts and experiences (information), to make inferences and judgments,based on concepts and theories to answer a question or solve a problem. Thus the elements of thought are: purpose, questions, information, inferences, assumptions, concepts, implications and point of view. In this guide, authors Linda Elder and Richard Paul explain, exemplify and contextualize these elements or structures of thought, showing the importance of analyzing reasoning in every part of human life. This guide can be used as a supplement to any text or course at the college level; and it may be used for improving thinking in personal and professional life. The Thinker's Guide to Intellectual Standards by Linda Elder, Richard Paul 4.19 · Rating details · 16 ratings https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19017637-the-thinker-s-guide-to-intellectual-standards Humans routinely assess thinking – their own thinking, and that of others, and yet they don’t necessarily use standards for thought that are reasonable, rational, sound. To think well, people need to routinely meet intellectual standards, standards of clarity, precision, accuracy, relevance, depth, logic, fairness, significance, and so forth. In this guide authors Elder and Paul offer a brief analysis of some of the most important intellectual standards in the English language. They look at the opposites of these standards. They argue for their contextualization within subjects and disciplines. And, they call attention to the forces that undermine their skilled use in thinking well. At present intellectual standards tend to be either taught implicitly, or ignored in instruction. Yet because they are essential to high quality reasoning in every part of human life, they should be explicitly taught and explicitly understood. The Truth Seeker’s Handbook: A Science-Based Guide by Gleb Tsipursky (Goodreads Author) 4.24 · Rating details · 63 ratings https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36800752-the-truth-seeker-s-handbook How do you know whether something is true? How do you convince others to believe the facts? Research shows that the human mind is prone to making thinking errors - predictable mistakes that cause us to believe comfortable lies over inconvenient truths. These errors leave us vulnerable to making decisions based on false beliefs, leading to disastrous consequences for our personal lives, relationships, careers, civic and political engagement, and for our society as a whole. Fortunately, cognitive and behavioral scientists have uncovered many useful strategies for overcoming our mental flaws. This book presents a variety of research-based tools for ensuring that our beliefs are aligned with reality. With examples from daily life and an engaging style, the book will provide you with the skills to avoid thinking errors and help others to do so, preventing disasters and facilitating success for yourself, those you care about, and our society. On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You're Not by Robert A. Burton 3.90 · Rating details · 2,165 ratings https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2740964-on-being-certain You recognize when you know something for certain, right? You "know" the sky is blue, or that the traffic light had turned green, or where you were on the morning of September 11, 2001--you know these things, well, because you just do. In On Being Certain, neurologist Robert Burton challenges the notions of how we think about what we know. He shows that the feeling of certainty we have when we "know" something comes from sources beyond our control and knowledge. In fact, certainty is a mental sensation, rather than evidence of fact. Because this "feeling of knowing" seems like confirmation of knowledge, we tend to think of it as a product of reason. But an increasing body of evidence suggests that feelings such as certainty stem from primitive areas of the brain, and are independent of active, conscious reflection and reasoning. The feeling of knowing happens to us; we cannot make it happen. Bringing together cutting edge neuroscience, experimental data, and fascinating anecdotes, Robert Burton explores the inconsistent and sometimes paradoxical relationship between our thoughts and what we actually know. Provocative and groundbreaking, On Being Certain, will challenge what you know (or think you know) about the mind, knowledge, and reason. Asking the Right Questions: A Guide to Critical Thinking by M. Neil Browne, Stuart M. Keeley 3.94 · Rating details · 1,290 ratings https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/394398.Asking_the_Right_Questions The habits and attitudes associated with critical thinking are transferable to consumer, medical, legal, and general ethical choices. When our surgeon says surgery is needed, it can be life sustaining to seek answers to the critical questions encouraged in Asking the Right Questions This popular book helps bridge the gap between simply memorizing or blindly accepting information, and the greater challenge of critical analysing the things we are told and read. It gives strategies for responding to alternative points of view and will help readers develop a solid foundation for making personal choices about what to accept and what to reject. On Truth by Simon Blackburn 3.60 · Rating details · 62 ratings https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36722220-on-truth Truth is not just a recent topic of contention. Arguments about it have gone on for centuries. Why is the truth important? Who decides what the truth is? Is there such a thing as objective, eternal truth, or is truth simply a matter of perspective, of linguistic or cultural vantage point? In this concise book Simon Blackburn provides an accessible explanation of what truth is and how we might think about it. The first half of the book details several main approaches to how we should think about, and decide, what is true. These are philosophical theories of truth such as the correspondence theory, the coherence theory, deflationism, and others. He then examines how those approaches relate to truth in several contentious domains: art, ethics, reasoning, religion, and the interpretation of texts. Blackburn's overall message is that truth is often best thought of not as a product or an end point that is 'finally' achieved, but--as the American pragmatist thinkers thought of it--as an ongoing process of inquiry. The result is an accessible and tour through some of the deepest and thorniest questions philosophy has ever tackled Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman 4.16 · Rating details · 317,352 ratings https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11468377-thinking-fast-and-slow?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=ZNhf1bAIxd&rank=1 In the highly anticipated Thinking, Fast and Slow, Kahneman takes us on a groundbreaking tour of the mind and explains the two systems that drive the way we think. System 1 is fast, intuitive, and emotional; System 2 is slower, more deliberative, and more logical. Kahneman exposes the extraordinary capabilities—and also the faults and biases—of fast thinking, and reveals the pervasive influence of intuitive impressions on our thoughts and behavior. The impact of loss aversion and overconfidence on corporate strategies, the difficulties of predicting what will make us happy in the future, the challenges of properly framing risks at work and at home, the profound effect of cognitive biases on everything from playing the stock market to planning the next vacation—each of these can be understood only by knowing how the two systems work together to shape our judgments and decisions. Engaging the reader in a lively conversation about how we think, Kahneman reveals where we can and cannot trust our intuitions and how we can tap into the benefits of slow thinking. He offers practical and enlightening insights into how choices are made in both our business and our personal lives—and how we can use different techniques to guard against the mental glitches that often get us into trouble. Thinking, Fast and Slow will transform the way you think about thinking. Before You Know It: The Unconscious Reasons We Do What We Do by John A. Bargh (Goodreads Author) 3.97 · Rating details · 788 ratings https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35011639-before-you-know-it Dr. John Bargh, the world’s leading expert on the unconscious mind, presents a “brilliant and convincing book” (Malcolm Gladwell) cited as an outstanding read of 2017 by Business Insider and The Financial Times—giving us an entirely new understanding of the hidden mental processes that secretly govern every aspect of our behavior. For more than three decades, Dr. John Bargh has conducted revolutionary research into the unconscious mind, research featured in bestsellers like Blink and Thinking Fast and Slow. Now, in what Dr. John Gottman said was “the most important and exciting book in psychology that has been written in the past twenty years,” Dr. Bargh takes us on an entertaining and enlightening tour of the forces that affect everyday behavior while transforming our understanding of ourselves in profound ways. Dr. Bargh takes us into his labs at New York University and Yale—where he and his colleagues have discovered how the unconscious guides our behavior, goals, and motivations in areas like race relations, parenting, business, consumer behavior, and addiction. With infectious enthusiasm he reveals what science now knows about the pervasive influence of the unconscious mind in who we choose to date or vote for, what we buy, where we live, how we perform on tests and in job interviews, and much more. Because the unconscious works in ways we are completely unaware of, Before You Know It is full of surprising and entertaining revelations as well as useful tricks to help you remember items on your to-do list, to shop smarter, and to sleep better. Before You Know It is “a fascinating compendium of landmark social-psychology research” (Publishers Weekly) and an introduction to a fabulous world that exists below the surface of your awareness and yet is the key to knowing yourself and unlocking new ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving. Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38315.Fooled_by_Randomness by Nassim Nicholas Taleb 4.07 · Rating details · 49,010 ratings Fooled by Randomness is a standalone book in Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s landmark Incerto series, an investigation of opacity, luck, uncertainty, probability, human error, risk, and decision-making in a world we don’t understand. Philosophy books Epistemology by Richard Feldman 3.84 · Rating details · 182 ratings https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/387295.Epistemology Sophisticated yet accessible and easy to read, this introduction to contemporary philosophical questions about knowledge and rationality goes beyond the usual bland survey of the major current views to show that there is argument involved. Throughout, the author provides a fair and balanced blending of the standard positions on epistemology with his own carefully reasoned positions or stances into the analysis of each concept. KEY TOPICS: Epistemological Questions. The Traditional Analysis of Knowledge. Modifying the Traditional Analysis of Knowledge. Evidentialist Theories of Justification. Non-evidentialist Theories of Knowledge and Justification. Skepticism. Epistemology and Science. Relativism. Problems of Knowledge: A Critical Introduction to Epistemology by Michael J. Williams 3.79 · Rating details · 86 ratings https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/477904.Problems_of_Knowledge "What is epistemology or 'the theory of knowledge'? Why does it matter? What makes theorizing about knowledge 'philosophical'? And why do some philosophers argue that epistemology - perhaps even philosophy itself - is dead?" " In this introduction, Michael Williams answers these questions, showing how epistemological theorizing is sensitive to a range of questions about the nature, limits, methods, and value of knowing. He pays special attention to the challenge of philosophical scepticism: does our 'knowledge' rest on brute assumptions? Does the rational outlook undermine itself?" Williams explains and criticizes all the main contemporary philosophical perspectives on human knowledge, such as foundationalism, the coherence theory, and 'naturalistic' theories. As an alternative to all of them, he defends his distinctive contextualist approach. As well as providing an accessible introduction for any reader approaching the subject for the first time, this book incorporates Williams's own ideas which will be of interest to all philosophers concerned with the theory of knowledge. Epistemology: A Contemporary Introduction to the Theory of Knowledge by Robert Audi 3.54 · Rating details · 176 ratings https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/477976.Epistemology This comprehensive book introduces the concepts and theories central for understanding knowledge. It aims to reach students who have already done an introductory philosophy course. Topics covered include perception and reflection as grounds of knowledge, and the nature, structure, and varieties of knowledge. The character and scope of knowledge in the crucial realms of ethics, science and religion are also considered. Unique features of Epistemology:
Provides a comprehensive survey of basic concepts and major theories
Gives an up-to-date account of important developments in the field
Contains many lucid examples to support ideas
Cites key literature in an annotated bibliography.
The Oxford Handbook of Thinking and Reasoning https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14829260-the-oxford-handbook-of-thinking-and-reasoning by Keith J. Holyoak (Editor), Robert G. Morrison (Editor) 4.08 · Rating details · 12 ratings Thinking and reasoning, long the academic province of philosophy, have over the past century emerged as core topics of empirical investigation and theoretical analysis in the modern fields of cognitive psychology, cognitive science, and cognitive neuroscience. Formerly seen as too complicated and amorphous to be included in early textbooks on the science of cognition, the study of thinking and reasoning has since taken off, brancing off in a distinct direction from the field from which it originated. The Oxford Handbook of Thinking and Reasoning is a comprehensive and authoritative handbook covering all the core topics of the field of thinking and reasoning. Written by the foremost experts from cognitive psychology, cognitive science, and cognitive neuroscience, individual chapters summarize basic concepts and findings for a major topic, sketch its history, and give a sense of the directions in which research is currently heading. Chapters include introductions to foundational issues and methods of study in the field, as well as treatment of specific types of thinking and reasoning and their application in a broad range of fields including business, education, law, medicine, music, and science. The volume will be of interest to scholars and students working in developmental, social and clinical psychology, philosophy, economics, artificial intelligence, education, and linguistics. Feminist Epistemologies (Thinking Gender) by Linda Martín Alcoff, Elizabeth Potter 4.14 · Rating details · 43 ratings https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/477960.Feminist_Epistemologies Noticed this review by an evangelical: "I have found this an immensely suggestive book, collecting as it does essays from both prominent and rising figures in feminist philosophy of knowledge--albeit from about two decades ago. I am struck by how little impact feminist thought, even of this high and generally temperate quality, has had on evangelical theology, to the shame of my guild." -John The Invisible Gorilla: And Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us by Christopher Chabris, Daniel Simons 3.91 Rating details · 13,537 ratings https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7783191-the-invisible-gorilla Reading this book will make you less sure of yourself—and that’s a good thing. In The Invisible Gorilla, Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons, creators of one of psychology’s most famous experiments, use remarkable stories and counterintuitive scientific findings to demonstrate an important truth: Our minds don’t work the way we think they do. We think we see ourselves and the world as they really are, but we’re actually missing a whole lot. Again and again, we think we experience and understand the world as it is, but our thoughts are beset by everyday illusions. We write traffic laws and build criminal cases on the assumption that people will notice when something unusual happens right in front of them. We’re sure we know where we were on 9/11, falsely believing that vivid memories are seared into our minds with perfect fidelity. And as a society, we spend billions on devices to train our brains because we’re continually tempted by the lure of quick fixes and effortless self-improvement. The Invisible Gorilla reveals the myriad ways that our intuitions can deceive us, but it’s much more than a catalog of human failings. Chabris and Simons explain why we succumb to these everyday illusions and what we can do to inoculate ourselves against their effects. Ultimately, the book provides a kind of x-ray vision into our own minds, making it possible to pierce the veil of illusions that clouds our thoughts and to think clearly for perhaps the first time. The Honest Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone - Especially Ourselves by Dan Ariely 3.94 · Rating details · 13,620 ratings https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13426114-the-honest-truth-about-dishonesty The New York Times bestselling author of Predictably Irrational and The Upside of Irrationality returns with thought-provoking work to challenge our preconceptions about dishonesty and urge us to take an honest look at ourselves. Does the chance of getting caught affect how likely we are to cheat? How do companies pave the way for dishonesty? Does collaboration make us more honest or less so? Does religion improve our honesty? Most of us think of ourselves as honest, but, in fact, we all cheat. From Washington to Wall Street, the classroom to the workplace, unethical behavior is everywhere. None of us is immune, whether it's the white lie to head off trouble or padding our expense reports. In The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty, award-winning, bestselling author Dan Ariely turns his unique insight and innovative research to the question of dishonesty. Generally, we assume that cheating, like most other decisions, is based on a rational cost-benefit analysis. But Ariely argues, and then demonstrates, that it's actually the irrational forces that we don't take into account that often determine whether we behave ethically or not. For every Enron or political bribe, there are countless puffed résumés, hidden commissions, and knockoff purses. In The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty, Ariely shows why some things are easier to lie about; how getting caught matters less than we think; and how business practices pave the way for unethical behavior, both intentionally and unintentionally. Ariely explores how unethical behavior works in the personal, professional, and political worlds, and how it affects all of us, even as we think of ourselves as having high moral standards. But all is not lost. Ariely also identifies what keeps us honest, pointing the way for achieving higher ethics in our everyday lives. With compelling personal and academic findings, The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty will change the way we see ourselves, our actions, and others. How to Stop Believing in Hell: a Schizophrenic's Religious Experience: Intellectual Honesty and Hallucinations - A Memoir by Robert Clayton Kimball https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22020049-how-to-stop-believing-in-hell it was amazing 5.00 · Rating details · 1 rating Kirkus Reviews: “…Kimball’s debut explores his hallucinatory religious mania, from his early childhood onward, beginning when he attended Catholic school. The early pages guide readers through narratives of his uncomfortable childhood traumas, sometimes in ugly detail…. Various other moments of shame revolved around school. Finding sex repugnant and sinful, he decided early on to remain celibate; he avoided sex until his eventual institutionalization. Meanwhile, hallucinatory monsters—including Lorus, “a turbulent face, golden like the comedy mask…”—and company pushed him away from religion, though he did convert to Pentecostalism in spite of them. Through this process, Kimball developed a solipsistic worldview, in which he was never sure others existed. Ultimately, though, it was his fear of damnation that became his greatest obsession, driving all the rest of his delusions and fears. He does exhibit a flair for description…: “On summer evenings, I liked to stand on the arroyo side of the house at night, alone, feeling the desert breeze through the tamarisks and smelling the clean desert smells in the warm darkness. The long row of tamarisks, with its tens of thousands of insects of a thousand species, hummed like the telephone network in The Castle, a beautiful, accidental music.’” Author’s Description: How to Stop Believing in Hell, describes the narrator's passage from a golden childhood to an adolescence of cringing guilt and religious fear. By the age of thirty, he had become a deranged street person, screaming horrible obscenities on crowded sidewalks in broad daylight. He desperately tried to stop but couldn’t. He was still filled with the fear of Hell. Then he had a spiritual awakening, broke free of his dementia, and learned to act deliberately. A paperback copy of this book can be purchased through my publisher, Chipmunka Publishing at their web site. The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan (Goodreads Author) 4.27 · Rating details · 59,893 ratings https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17349.The_Demon_Haunted_World How can we make intelligent decisions about our increasingly technology-driven lives if we don’t understand the difference between the myths of pseudoscience and the testable hypotheses of science? Pulitzer Prize-winning author and distinguished astronomer Carl Sagan argues that scientific thinking is critical not only to the pursuit of truth but to the very well-being of our democratic institutions. Casting a wide net through history and culture, Sagan examines and authoritatively debunks such celebrated fallacies of the past as witchcraft, faith healing, demons, and UFOs. And yet, disturbingly, in today's so-called information age, pseudoscience is burgeoning with stories of alien abduction, channeling past lives, and communal hallucinations commanding growing attention and respect. As Sagan demonstrates with lucid eloquence, the siren song of unreason is not just a cultural wrong turn but a dangerous plunge into darkness that threatens our most basic freedoms. How to Think about Weird Things: Critical Thinking for a New Age by Theodore Schick Jr. Lewis Vaughn, Martin Gardner (Foreword) 4.00 · Rating details · 530 ratings https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41756.How_to_Think_about_Weird_Things This text serves well as a supplemental text in:
critical thinking
logic
introduction to philosophy
philosophy of science
epistemology
metaphysics
introduction to psychology
anomalistic psychology
perception and cognition
as well as any introductory science course. It has been used in all of the courses mentioned above as well as introductory biology, introductory physics, and introductory chemistry courses. It could also serve as a main text for courses in evaluation of the paranormal, philosophical implications of the paranormal, occult beliefs, and pseudoscience. Popular Statistics Naked Statistics: Stripping the Dread from the Data by Charles Wheelan 3.94 · Rating details · 10,367 ratings https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17986418-naked-statistics Once considered tedious, the field of statistics is rapidly evolving into a discipline Hal Varian, chief economist at Google, has actually called “sexy.” From batting averages and political polls to game shows and medical research, the real-world application of statistics continues to grow by leaps and bounds. How can we catch schools that cheat on standardized tests? How does Netflix know which movies you’ll like? What is causing the rising incidence of autism? As best-selling author Charles Wheelan shows us in Naked Statistics, the right data and a few well-chosen statistical tools can help us answer these questions and more. For those who slept through Stats 101, this book is a lifesaver. Wheelan strips away the arcane and technical details and focuses on the underlying intuition that drives statistical analysis. He clarifies key concepts such as inference, correlation, and regression analysis, reveals how biased or careless parties can manipulate or misrepresent data, and shows us how brilliant and creative researchers are exploiting the valuable data from natural experiments to tackle thorny questions. And in Wheelan’s trademark style, there’s not a dull page in sight. You’ll encounter clever Schlitz Beer marketers leveraging basic probability, an International Sausage Festival illuminating the tenets of the central limit theorem, and a head-scratching choice from the famous game show Let’s Make a Deal—and you’ll come away with insights each time. With the wit, accessibility, and sheer fun that turned Naked Economics into a bestseller, Wheelan defies the odds yet again by bringing another essential, formerly unglamorous discipline to life. The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail—But Some Don't by Nate Silver 3.98 · Rating details · 43,804 ratings · 3,049 reviews https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13588394-the-signal-and-the-noise One of Wall Street Journal's Best Ten Works of Nonfiction in 2012 New York Times Bestseller "Not so different in spirit from the way public intellectuals like John Kenneth Galbraith once shaped discussions of economic policy and public figures like Walter Cronkite helped sway opinion on the Vietnam War…could turn out to be one of the more momentous books of the decade." -New York Times Book Review "Nate Silver's The Signal and the Noise is The Soul of a New Machine for the 21st century." -Rachel Maddow, author of Drift "A serious treatise about the craft of prediction-without academic mathematics-cheerily aimed at lay readers. Silver's coverage is polymathic, ranging from poker and earthquakes to climate change and terrorism." -New York Review of Books Nate Silver built an innovative system for predicting baseball performance, predicted the 2008 election within a hair's breadth, and became a national sensation as a blogger-all by the time he was thirty. He solidified his standing as the nation's foremost political forecaster with his near perfect prediction of the 2012 election. Silver is the founder and editor in chief of FiveThirtyEight.com. Drawing on his own groundbreaking work, Silver examines the world of prediction, investigating how we can distinguish a true signal from a universe of noisy data. Most predictions fail, often at great cost to society, because most of us have a poor understanding of probability and uncertainty. Both experts and laypeople mistake more confident predictions for more accurate ones. But overconfidence is often the reason for failure. If our appreciation of uncertainty improves, our predictions can get better too. This is the "prediction paradox": The more humility we have about our ability to make predictions, the more successful we can be in planning for the future. In keeping with his own aim to seek truth from data, Silver visits the most successful forecasters in a range of areas, from hurricanes to baseball, from the poker table to the stock market, from Capitol Hill to the NBA. He explains and evaluates how these forecasters think and what bonds they share. What lies behind their success? Are they good-or just lucky? What patterns have they unraveled? And are their forecasts really right? He explores unanticipated commonalities and exposes unexpected juxtapositions. And sometimes, it is not so much how good a prediction is in an absolute sense that matters but how good it is relative to the competition. In other cases, prediction is still a very rudimentary-and dangerous-science. Silver observes that the most accurate forecasters tend to have a superior command of probability, and they tend to be both humble and hardworking. They distinguish the predictable from the unpredictable, and they notice a thousand little details that lead them closer to the truth. Because of their appreciation of probability, they can distinguish the signal from the noise. With everything from the health of the global economy to our ability to fight terrorism dependent on the quality of our predictions, Nate Silver's insights are an essential read. Bayesian Statistics the Fun Way: Understanding Statistics and Probability with Star Wars, Lego, and Rubber Ducks by Will Kurt 4.21 · Rating details · 128 ratings https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41392893-bayesian-statistics-the-fun-way Fun guide to learning Bayesian statistics and probability through unusual and illustrative examples. Probability and statistics are increasingly important in a huge range of professions. But many people use data in ways they don't even understand, meaning they aren't getting the most from it. Bayesian Statistics the Fun Way will change that. This book will give you a complete understanding of Bayesian statistics through simple explanations and un-boring examples. Find out the probability of UFOs landing in your garden, how likely Han Solo is to survive a flight through an asteroid shower, how to win an argument about conspiracy theories, and whether a burglary really was a burglary, to name a few examples. By using these off-the-beaten-track examples, the author actually makes learning statistics fun. And you'll learn real skills, like how to:
How to measure your own level of uncertainty in a conclusion or belief
Calculate Bayes theorem and understand what it's useful for
Find the posterior, likelihood, and prior to check the accuracy of your conclusions
Calculate distributions to see the range of your data
Compare hypotheses and draw reliable conclusions from them
Next time you find yourself with a sheaf of survey results and no idea what to do with them, turn to Bayesian Statistics the Fun Way to get the most value from your data.
Tartaria: The Supposed Mega-Empire of Inner Eurasia
Introduction
For those not in the know, the Tartaria conspiracy theory is one of the most bizarre pieces of pseudo history out there. Its core notion is that the region known as ‘Tartaria’ or ‘Grand Tartary’ in Early Modern European maps was not simply a vague geographical designate, but in fact a vast, centralised empire. Said empire emerged… at some point, and it disappeared… at some point, but for… some reason, its existence has been covered up to suit… some narrative or another. As you can tell, there’s a lot of diverse ideas here, and the fact that there hasn’t been the equivalent of a Christological schism every time a controversial thread goes up is really quite impressive. While this post will primarily address one particular piece of writing that is at the core of Tartaria conspiracy theorising, I’ll include a few tidbits to show you just how much madness its adherents have come up with. But first, some background.
State of Play, and why I’m doing this
The Tartaria theory has a small but active following on subreddits such as Tartaria, tartarianarchitecture, and CulturalLayer, which as of writing have around 5,300, 2,400 and 23,000 subscribers, respectively, but it’s clear from the 8 questions on the topic asked at AskHistorians since January 2019 and this debunk request from June that it’s a theory that has somewhat broad appeal and can reach beyond its core niche. This is unsurprising given how little education most people in the West receive about basically anything east of Greece: simply put, the reality of Eurasian history is just not something most of us are taught. And if we don’t know the reality of Eurasian history to begin with, or if we do then it's all in bits and pieces where we might not even know a basic set of dates and names, then what seems to be a pretty developed narrative about a lost empire actually turns out rather plausible. Unfortunately, many debunks of the Tartaria narrative come from people pushing competing conspiracy theories, like this guy claiming that there’s a global Jewish Phoenecian conspiracy and that Tartaria is simply rehashing the notion that Khazars were Jews in order to distract from the real Phoenecian threat at the heart of global society or some nonsense like that. (I don’t really care, I died of laughter after page 3.) Now, there are those coming from serious perspectives, but they focus largely on the problems with Tartaria as a concept rather than addressing the more specific claims being made. This is of course valuable in its own right (shoutout to Kochevnik81 for their responses to the AskHistorians threads), but we can go deeper by really striking at the roots of this ‘theory’ – what is the ‘evidence’ they’re presenting? But to do that, we need to find out what the origins of the ‘theory' are, and thus what its linchpins are. Incidentally, it is because of some recent events regarding those origins that I’ve been finally prompted to write this post.
Where does it come from?
My attempts to find the exact origins of the Tartaria conspiracy have been not entirely fruitful, as the connections I’ve found have been relatively circumstantial at best. But as far as I can tell, it at least partially originates with that Russian pseudohistorian we all know and love, Anatoly Fomenko. Fomenko is perhaps best known in the English-speaking world for his 7-volume ‘epic’ from 2002, History: Fiction or Science?, but in fact he’s been pushing a complete ‘New Chronology’ since the publication of Novaia khronologia in Russian in 1995. While the New Chronology is best known for its attempt to explain away most of the Middle Ages as a hoax created by the Papacy on the basis of bad astronomy, it also asserts a number of things about Russian history from the Kievan Rus’ to the Romanovs. Key to the Tartaria theory is its claim that there was a vast Slavo-Turkic ‘Russian Horde’ based out of ‘Tartaria’ which dominated Eurasia until the last ‘Horde’ ruler, Boris Godunov, was overthrown by the European Mikhail Romanov. This, of course, is a clear attempt at countering the notion of a ‘Tatar Yoke’ over Russia, as you can’t have a ‘Tatar Yoke’ if the Tatars were Russians all along. Much as I’d like to explain that in more detail here, I don’t have to: in 2004, Konstantin Sheiko at the University of Wollongong wrote an entire PhD thesis looking at the claims of Fomenko’s New Chronology and contextualising them within currents of Russian nationalism, which can be accessed online. But I personally suspect that if there are Fomenko connections as far as Tartaria specifically is concerned, they are limited. For one, at one stage users on the Tartaria subreddit seemed unfamiliar with Fomenko, and there are those arguing that Fomenko had ‘rewritten’ Tartarian history to be pro-Russian. This is why I said that the evidence was circumstantial. The only other link to Fomenko is indirect: the CulturalLayer sidebar lists the ‘New Chronology Resource Collection’ and the audiobook of History: Fiction or Science? under ‘Essential Resources’, and Tartaria in its ‘Related Subs’. As far as I can tell, the ultimate origin of its developed form on the Anglophone web traces back to this post on the StolenHistory forums, posted on 17 April 2018. This makes some chronological sense: only one top-level post on CulturalLayer that mentions Tartaria predates this. Moreover, KorbenDallas, the OP of the thread, was also the forum’s chief admin, and given that StolenHistory is still (as of writing) the top resource on CulturalLayer’s sidebar, that suggests significant influence. However, using the search function on camas.github.io, it was mentioned in comments at least 9 times before then, with the first mention, on 10 January 2018, mentioning that the ‘theory’ had been doing the rounds on the Russian web for at least 5 years. Nevertheless, as the detail in these early comments is sparse and generally refers only to speculation about maps, it is probably fair to say that the first in-depth English-language formulation of the Tartaria ‘theory’ was thus the April 2018 forum post. Funnily enough, it is not cited often on Tartaria, but that subreddit was created on 27 December, long after discussion had been taking place on places like CulturalLayer, and combined with the ‘mudflood’ ‘theory’ and the notion of giant humans, which are not significant features of the StolenHistory thread. This more convoluted and multifaceted version of the Tartaria theory doesn’t really have a single-document articulation, hence me not covering it here. It is this StolenHistory thread which I will be looking at here today. Not just because it seems to be at the heart of it all, but also because it got shut down around 36 hours ago as of writing this post, based on the timestamps of panicked ‘what happened to StolenHistory’ posts on CulturalLayer and Tartaria. So what better occasion to go back to the Wayback Machine’s version, seeing as it’s now quite literally impossible to brigade the source? Now as I’ve said, this is not the most batshit insane it gets for the Tartaria crowd, in fact it’s incredibly tame. But by the end of it, I bet you’ll be thinking ‘if this is mild, how much more worse is the modern stuff!?’ And the best part is, I can debunk most of it without recourse to any other sources at all, because so much of it involves them posting sources out of context or expecting them to be read tendentiously. But that’s enough background. Let us begin.
Part 1: The Existence
Exhibit 1: The Encylcopædia Britannica, 1771
”Tartary, a vast country in the northern parts of Asia, bounded by Siberia on the north and west: this is called Great Tartary. The Tartars who lie south of Muscovy and Siberia, are those of Astracan, Circassia, and Dagistan, situated north-west of the Caspian-sea; the Calmuc Tartars, who lie between Siberia and the Caspian-sea; the Usbec Tartars and Moguls, who lie north of Persia and India; and lastly, those of Tibet, who lie north-west of China.” - Encyclopædia Britannica, Vol. III, Edinburgh, 1771, p. 887.
Starting a post about the ‘hidden’ history of Central Asia with an encyclopædia entry from Scotland is really getting off to a good start, isn’t it? Anyone with a sense of basic geography can tell you that Tibet lies due west of China, not northwest. But more importantly, this shows you how single-minded the Tartaria advocates are and how tendentiously they read things. ‘Country’ need not actually refer to a state entity, it can just be a geographical space, especially in more archaic contexts such as this. Moreover, the ethnographic division of the ‘Tartars’ into Astrakhanis, Circassians, Dagestanis, Kalmuks, Uzbeks, and, for whatever reason, Tibetans, pretty clearly goes against the notion of a unified Tartary.
Now compare to the description given by Wikipedia, ”Tartary (Latin: Tartaria) or Great Tartary (Latin: Tartaria Magna) was a name used from the Middle Ages until the twentieth century to designate the great tract of northern and central Asia stretching from the Caspian Sea and the Ural Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, settled mostly by Turko-Mongol peoples after the Mongol invasion and the subsequent Turkic migrations.”
Obviously, Wikipedia is not a good source for… anything, really, but the fact that they’re giving a 349-year-old encyclopaedia primacy over the summary sentence of a wiki article is demonstrative of how much dishonesty is behind this. And it only gets worse from here.
Exhibit 2: Hermann Moll’s A System of Geography, 1701
THE Country of Tartary, call'd Great Tartary, to distinguish it from the Lesser, in Europe, has for its Boundaries, on the West, the Caspian Sea, and Moscovitick Tartary; on the North, the Scythian, or Tartarian Sea; on the East, the Sea of the Kalmachites, and the Straight of Jesso; and on the South, China, India, or the Dominions of the great Mogul and Persia : So that it is apparently the largest Region of the whole Continent of Asia, extending it self [sic] farthest, both towards the North and East: In the modern Maps, it is plac'd within the 70th and 170th Degree of Longitude, excluding Muscovitick Tartary; as also between the 40 and 72 Degree of Northern Latitude.
Immediately underneath the scan of this text is the statement, clearly highlighted, that
Tartary was not a tract. It was a country.
Hmm, very emphatic there. Except wait no, the same semantic problem recurs. ‘Country’ need not mean ‘state’. Moreover, in the very same paragraph, Moll (or rather his translator) refers to Tartary as a ‘Region’, which very much disambiguates the idea. Aside from that, it is telling that Moll refers to three distinct ‘Tartaries’: ’Great Tartary’ in Asia, ‘Lesser Tartary’ in Europe, and ‘Muscovite Tartary’ – that is, the eastern territories of the Russian Tsardom. If, as they are saying, ‘Great Tartary’ was a coherent entity, whatever happened to ‘Lesser Tartary’?
Exhibit 3: A 1957 report by the CIA on ‘National Cultural Development Under Communism’
Is a conspiracy theorist… actually believing a CIA document? Yep. I’ll add some context later that further complicates the issue.
Or let us take the matter of history, which, along with religion, language and literature, constitute the core of a people’s cultural heritage. Here again the Communists have interfered in a shameless manner. For example, on 9 August 1944, the Central Committee of the Communist Party, sitting in Moscow, issued a directive ordering the party’s Tartar Provincial Committee “to proceed to a scientific revolution of the history of Tartaria, to liquidate serious shortcomings and mistakes of a nationalistic character committed by individual writers and historians in dealing with Tartar history.” In other words, Tartar history was to be rewritten—let its be frank, was to be falsified—in order to eliminate references to Great Russian aggressions and to hide the facts of the real course of Tartar-Russian relations. [similar judgement on Soviet rewriting of histories of Muslim areas to suit a pro-Russian agenda]
What’s fascinating about the inclusion of this document is that it is apparently often invoked as a piece of anti-Fomenko evidence, by tying New Chronology in with older Russian-nationalist Soviet revisionism. So not only is it ironic that they’re citing a CIA document, of all things, but a CIA document often used to undermine the spiritual founder of the whole Tartaria ‘theory’ in the first place! But to return to the point, the fundamental issue is that it’s tendentious. This document from 1957 obviously is not going to be that informed on the dynamics of Central Asian ethnicity and history in the way that a modern scholar would be. In a broader sense, what this document is supposed to prove is that Soviet coverups are why we don’t know about Tartaria. But if most of the evidence came from Western Europe to begin with, why would a Soviet coverup matter? Why wasn’t Tartarian history deployed as a counter-narrative during the Cold War?
Exhibit 4: ‘An 1855 Source’
This is from a footnote in Sir George Cornwalle Lewis’ An Inquiry into the Credibility of the Early Roman History, citing a travelogue by Evariste Huc that had been published in French in 1850 and was soon translated into English. From the digitised version of of Huc’s book on Project Gutenberg (emphasis copied over from the thread):
Such remains of ancient cities are of no unfrequent occurrence in the deserts of Mongolia; but everything connected with their origin and history is buried in darkness. Oh, with what sadness does such a spectacle fill the soul! The ruins of Greece, the superb remains of Egypt,—all these, it is true, tell of death; all belong to the past; yet when you gaze upon them, you know what they are; you can retrace, in memory, the revolutions which have occasioned the ruins and the decay of the country around them. Descend into the tomb, wherein was buried alive the city of Herculaneum,—you find there, it is true, a gigantic skeleton, but you have within you historical associations wherewith to galvanize it. But of these old abandoned cities of Tartary, not a tradition remains; they are tombs without an epitaph, amid solitude and silence, uninterrupted except when the wandering Tartars halt, for a while, within the ruined enclosures, because there the pastures are richer and more abundant.
There’s a paraphrase from Lewis as well, but you can just read it on the thread. The key thing here is that yes, there were abandoned settlements in the steppe. Why must this be indicative of a lost sedentary civilisation, and not instead the remnants of political capitals of steppe federations which were abandoned following those federations’ collapse? Places like Karakorum, Kubak Zar, Almaliq and Sarai were principally built around political functions, being centres for concentration of religious and ritual authority (especially monasteries) and stores of non-movable (or difficult to move) wealth. But individual examples of abandoned settlements are not evidence of broad patterns of settlement that came to be abandoned en masse. Indeed, the very fact that the cited shepherd calls the abandoned location ‘The Old Town’ in the singular implies just how uncommon such sites were – for any given region, there might really only be one of note.
Exhibit 5: Ethnic characteristics in artistic depictions of Chinggis and Timur
I… don’t quite know what to make of these.
Today, we have certain appearance related stereotypes. I think we are very much off there. It looks like Tartary was multi-religious, and multi-cultural. One of the reasons I think so is the tremendous disparity between what leaders like Genghis Khan, Batu Khan, Timur aka Tamerlane looked like to the contemporary artists vs. the appearance attributed to them today.
Ummm, what? These are apparently what they look like today. These are ‘contemporary’ depictions of Chinggis:
In what bizzaro world are these contemporary? We’ll get to Batur Khan in a moment because that’s its own kettle of worms. But can this user not recognise that artists tend to depict things in ways that are familiar? Of course white European depictions of Chinggis and Timur will tend to make them look like white Europeans, while East Asian depictions of Chinggis will tend to make him look Asian, and Middle Eastern depictions of Chinggis and Timur will make them look Middle Eastern. This doesn’t prove that ‘Tartaria’ was multicultural, in fact it you’d have an easier time using this ‘evidence’ to argue that Chinggis and Timur were shapeshifters who could change ethnicities at will!
Exhibit 6: Turkish sculptures
Why this person thinks modern Turkish sculptures are of any use to anyone baffles me. The seven sculptures shown are of Batu Khan (founder of the ‘Golden Horde’/Jochid khanates), Timur, Bumin (founder of the First Turkic Khaganate), Ertugrul (father of Osman, the founder of the Ottoman empire), Babur (founder of the Mughal Empire), Attila the Hun, and Kutlug Bilge Khagan (founder of the Uyghur Khaganate). They are accompanied (except in the case of Ertugrul) by the dates of the empires/confederations that they founded – hence, for instance, Babur’s dates being 1526 to 1858, the lifespan of the Mughal Empire, or Timur’s being 1368 (which seems arbitrary) to 1507 (the fall of Herat to the Shaybanids). To quote the thread:
A few of them I do not know, but the ones I do look nothing like what I was taught at school. Also dates are super bizarre on those plaques.
Again, Turkish sculptors make Turkic people look like Turks. Big surprise. And the dates are comprehensible if you just take a moment to think.
Do Turks know something we don't?
Turkish, evidently.
Exhibit 7: A map from 1652 that the user can’t even read
The other reason why I think Tartary had to be multi-religious, and multi-cultural is its vastness during various moments in time. For example in 1652 Tartary appears to have control over the North America.
The official history is hiding a major world power which existed as late as the 19th century. Tartary was a country with its own flag, its own government and its own place on the map. Its territory was huge, but somehow quietly incorporated into Russia, and some other countries. This country you can find on the maps predating the second half of the 19th century.
You know, a common theme with historical conspiracy theories is how badly they’re laid out, in the literal sense of the layout of their documents and video content. Don’t make a header called ‘The Coverup’ and then only have one thing before jumping back to the evidence for the existence again.
Exhibit 9: A Table
Yet, some time in the 18th century Tartary Muskovite was the biggest country in the world: 3,050,000 square miles.
You can look at the images on the thread itself but here’s a few highlights:
1654: Bellum Tartaricum, or the Conquest of China By the Invasion of the Tartars, who in the last seven years, have wholly subdued that empire
1670: Historia de la Conquista de la China por el Tartaro
Histories of the Qing conquest of China, because as far as Europeans were concerned the Manchus were Tartars. Proof of Tartaria because…?
1662: The Voyages and Travels of the Ambassadors of the Duke of Holstein, to the Great Duke of Muscovy, and the King of Persia… Containing a compleat History of Muscovy, Tartary, Persia, and Other Adjacent Countries…
An ambassador who never set foot in ‘Tartary’ itself, cool cool, very good evidence there. There’s also three screenshots from books that aren’t even specifically named, so impossible to follow up. Clearly this is all we need.
Exhibit 11: Maps
The maps are the key think the Tartaria pushers use. All these maps showing ‘Grand Tartary’ or ‘Tartaria’ or what have you. There’s 20 of these here and you can look for yourselves, but the key thing is: why do these people assume that this referred to a single state entity? Because any of these maps that include the world more generally will also present large parts of Africa in generic terms, irrespective of actual political organisation in these regions. And many of the later maps clearly show the tripartite division of the region into ‘Chinese Tartary’, ‘Russian Tartary’, and ‘Independent Tartary’, which you think would be clear evidence that most of this region was controlled by, well, the Chinese (really, the Manchus) and the Russians. And many of these maps aren’t even maps of political organisation, but geographical space. See how many lump all of mainland Southeast Asia into ‘India’. Moreover, the poor quality of the mapping should give things away. This one for instance is very clear on the Black Sea coast, but the Caspian is a blob, and moreover, a blob that’s elongated along the wrong axis! They’re using Western European maps as an indicator of Central Asian realities in the most inept way possible, and it would be sad if it weren’t so hilarious. The fact that the depictions of the size of Tartaria are incredibly inconsistent also seems not to matter.
Exhibit 12: The Tartarian Language
There’s an 1849 American newspaper article referring to the ‘Tartarian’ language, which is very useful thank you, and definitely not more reflective of American ignorance than actual linguistic reality. The next one is more interesting, because it’s from a translation of some writing by a French Jesuit, referring to the writing of Manchu, and who asserted (with very little clear evidence) that it could be read in any direction. In April last year, Tartaria users [claimed to have stumbled on a dictionary of Tartarian and French](np.reddit.com/Tartaria/comments/bi3aph/tartarian_language_dictionary/) called the Dictionnaire Tartare-Mantchou-François. What they failed to realise is that the French generally called the Manchus ‘Tartare-Mantchou’, and this was in fact a Manchu-French dictionary. In other words, a [Tartare-Mantchou]-[François] dictionary, not a [Tartare]-[Mantchou]-[François] dictionary. It is quite plausible, in fact probable, that the ‘Tartarian’ referred to in the newspaper article was Manchu.
Exhibit 13: Genealogies of Tartarian Kings
Descended From Genghiscan
Reads the comment above this French chart. How the actual hell did OP not recognise that ‘Genghiscan’ is, erm, Genghis Khan? Is it that hard to understand that maybe, just maybe, ‘Tartars’ was what they called Mongols back in the day, and ‘Tartaria’ the Mongol empire and its remnants?
Exhibit 14: Ethnographic drawings
These prove that there were people called Tartars, not that there was a state of Tartaria. NEXT
Exhibit 17: Flags of Moscow on one particular chart
It is also worth mentioning that in the British Flag Table of 1783, there are three different flags listed as a flag of the Tsar of Moscow. There is also an Imperial Flag of Russia as well as multiple naval flags. And all of them are proceeded by a flag of the Viceroy of Russia.
By that logic, the Royal Navy ran Britain because the Royal Navy ensigns precede the Union Jack. It’s simply a conscious decision to show the flags of individuals before the flags of states. The ‘Viceroy’ (unsure what the original Russian title would be) and ‘Czar’ of Muscovy would presumably be, well, the Emperor of Russia anyway, so as with the British section where the Royal Standard and the flags of naval officers came first, the same seems true of Russia. Also, as a side note, the placement of the USA at the end, after the Persians, the Mughals and ‘Tartarians’, is a fun touch.
Significance of the Viceroy is in the definition of the term. A viceroy is a regal official who runs a country, colony, city, province, or sub-national state, in the name of and as the representative of the monarch of the territory. Our official history will probably say that it was the Tsar of Russia who would appoint a viceroy of Moscow. I have reasons to doubt that. Why is the flag of the Viceroy of Moscow positioned prior to any other Russian flag? Could it be that the Viceroy of Moscow was superior to its Czar, and was "supervising" how this Tartarian possession was being run?
No.
Part 3: 1812
This, this is where it gets really bonkers. A key part of this post is arguing that Napoleon’s invasion of Russia was a cover story for a joint invasion against Tartaria gone horrendously wrong. All the stops are being pulled out here.
There is a growing opinion in Russia that French invasion of Russia played out according to a different scenario. The one where Tsar Alexander I, and Napoleon were on the same side. Together they fought against Tartary. Essentially France and Saint Petersburg against Moscow (Tartary). And there is a strong circumstantial evidence to support such a theory.
Oh yes, we’re going there.
Questions to Answer: 1. Saint Petersburg was the capitol of Russia. Yet Napoleon chose to attack Moscow. Why?
2. It appears that in 1912 there was a totally different recollection of the events of 1812. How else could you explain commemorative 1912 medals honoring Napoleon?
Because it’s a bit of an in-your-face to Napoleon for losing so badly?
And specifically the one with Alexander I, and Napoleon on the same medal. The below medal says something similar to, "Strength is in the unity: will of God, firmness of royalty, love for homeland and people"
Yeah, it’s showing Alexander I beating Napoleon, and a triumphant double-headed Russian eagle above captured French standards. Also, notice how Alexander is in full regalia, while Napoleon’s is covered up by his greatcoat?
3. Similarity between Russian and French uniforms. There are more different uniforms involved, but the idea remains, they were ridiculously similar.
Ah yes, because fashions in different countries always develop separately, and never get influenced by each other.
There was one additional combat asset officially available to Russians in the war of 1812. And that was the Militia. It does appear that this so-called Militia, was in reality the army of Tartary fighting against Napoleon and Alexander I.
4. Russian nobility in Saint Petersburg spoke French well into the second half of the 19th century. The general explanation was, that it was the trend of time and fashion. Google contains multiple opinions on the matter. * Following the same logic, USA, Britain and Russia should've picked up German after the victory in WW2.
Clearly never heard of the term lingua franca then.
5. This one I just ran into: 19th-century fans were totally into a Napoleon/Alexander romance
I am pleased with [Emperor] Alexander; he ought to be with me. If he were a woman, I think I should make him my mistress.
But Napoleon’s ‘honeymoon period’ with Russia following the Treaty of Tilsit should not be seen as indicative of a permanent Napoleonic affection for Russia. Notably, Napoleon’s war with Russia didn’t just end in 1812. How are the Tartaria conspiracists going to explain the War of the Sixth Coalition, when Russian, Prussian and Austrian troops drove the French out of Germany? Did the bromance suddenly stop because of 1812? Or, is it more reasonable to see 1812 as the end result of the bromance falling apart?
Conclusions
So there you have it, Tartaria in all its glorious nonsensicalness. Words cannot capture how massively bonkers this entire thing is. And best of all, I hardly needed my own sources because so much of it is just a demonstration of terrible reading comprehension. Still, if you want to actually learn about some of the history of Inner Eurasia, see below:
Bibliography
The Cambridge History of Inner Asia – 2 volumes so far, covering up to 1886. Not really a single contiguous narrative, as each chapter has its own individual author, but a good general coverage.
Scott C. Levi, The Bukharan Crisis: A Connected History of 18th Century Central Asia (2020) – A book about actual Central Asian history, focussing on the global and local factors that led to the weakening and collapse of the Chinggisid state in Bukhara and the rise of the Uzbek-led Emirate. Also a very good historiographical examination of lay understandings of the period.
Mark C. Elliott, ‘The Limits of Tartary: Manchuria in Imperial and National Geographies’, The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 59, No. 3 (2000) – A discussion of conceptions of Manchuria by Manchu, Chinese, Japanese and European cartographers and geographers, with the section on European geographers being important for getting at the ‘Tartary’ aspect.
David Christian, ‘Inner Eurasia as a Unit of World History’, Journal of World History, Vol. 5, No. 2 (1994) – A somewhat older view, presenting Inner Eurasia as a distinct unit in world history, but largely in terms of effects on the rest of Eurasia.
Nicola di Cosmo, ‘State Formation and Periodization in Inner Asian History’, Journal of World History, Vol.10, No.1 (1999) – A partial response to Christian, offering an alternate periodisation based more on the internal dynamics of nomadic state formations and stressing viewing Inner Asian history in terms of those internal dynamics, rather than relegating it to a subordinate place in the histories of ‘Outer Eurasian’, sedentary states.
Konstantin Sheiko, ‘Lomonosov’s Bastards: Anatolii Fomenko, Pseudo-History and Russia’s Search for a Post-Communist Identity’ [PhD Thesis] (2004) – Specifically deconstructs Fomenko’s version of Tartaria.
The bibliography is a summary that lists the sources utilized for completing a book, article or project guide. Generally, a bibliography is mentioned at the end of the content. While planning a project, it is essential to take notes of sources/references, so that it will be easy to mention when preparing a project guide. The English Profile project hopes to adopt an interactive approach to spoken fluency and bases its understanding on spoken corpus evidence from native- and expert-users of English as well as learners at all levels. The bibliography includes the main works that have influenced the research to date. Bialystok, E. (1982). A bibliography is a list of sources that were referenced to write an academic paper, a journal article, a book, a critique, an essay or any other type of academic writing. A bibliography differs from a works cited page because a bibliography includes any works that were referenced to write the paper, not merely the works that were cited in the paper. I want bibliography for my english project.? I need it with an example. Answer Save. 2 Answers. Relevance. Wow! Lv 5. 7 years ago. Favourite answer. Every entry will vary depending on the details of what type of source it is and other factors. A bibliography is an alphabetized list of all the sources used in the paper. This list is found at the end of the work and allows the reader to verify the veracity of the statements and/or figures presented in the essay. It also allows a writer to give proper credit for quotes or key phrases so as to avoid plagiarism. A Bibliography is a list of sources used by candidates in their research work. A bibliography should include the author's name, the title of the publication, etc. Author Name. Title of the Publication. Date of Publication. The Place of Publication of Book/Journals. The Number of Pages. Writing a list of references. At the end of all pieces of academic writing, you need a list of materials that you have used or referred to. This usually has a heading: references but may be bibliography or works cited depending on the conventions of the system you use. The object of your writing is for you to say something for yourself using the ideas of the subject, for you to present ideas ... Updated November 21, 2019. A bibliography is a list of works (such as books and articles) written on a particular subject or by a particular author. Adjective: bibliographic. Also known as a list of works cited, a bibliography may appear at the end of a book, report, online presentation, or research paper. A bibliography is a listing of the books, magazines, and Internet sources that you use in designing, carrying out, and understanding your science fair project. But, you develop a bibliography only after first preparing a background research plan — a road map of the research questions you need to answer.
How to pronounce BIBLIOGRAPHY in British English - YouTube
Bibliography (from Greek βιβλίον biblion, "book" and -γραφία -graphia, "writing"), as a discipline, is traditionally the academic study of books as physical, cultural objects; in this sense, it is... Writing an annotated bibliography is often a required first step when starting a research paper or project. This video lays out the steps to completing an annotated bibliography, as well as some ... Tips on putting together you bibliography for NHD. Links: MLA PurdueOWL: owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/ Chicago Manual of Style: www.chicagomanu... About Press Copyright Contact us Creators Advertise Developers Terms Privacy Policy & Safety How YouTube works Test new features Press Copyright Contact us Creators ... 4th Grader Cameron Lucas' school presentation of his Famous Person, Thomas Alva Edison, Bibliography in School. What is bibliography & what is reference - bibliography meaning explained in simple terms and easy to understand - what is annotated bibliography - what is t... YouTube Search How our search tool can help you find content you'll love Recommended videos How we recommend content we think you'll want to watch News and information How we provide context for ... This video shows you how to pronounce BIBLIOGRAPHY in British English. Speaker has an accent from Central Scotland. https://www.collinsdictionary.com/diction... How to write Bibliography for Project File How to make project bibliography page. Hey Subscribers/Non subscribers thank you for watching this this channel ...
