Talk:Shadows in the Desert: Ancient Persia at War/Archive 7

Is Jona Lendering's Review Informative?
Gentlemen,

I am new to Wikipedia. I am from Greece originally and I now in Canada pursuing Hellenic Studies. I do not claim to be an expert on ancient Iran. I have already posted on the Kaveh Farrokh Discussion Forum and much of what I had to say there is also pertinent here.

It would seem that all of these recent attacks on this forum against Dr. Farrokh are mainly based on Jona Lendering’s “review” which was posted around the same time that the Spiegel Magazine article against Cyrus was published (around July or so).

That “review” is actually being examined by a number of academics in Iranian and Hellenic studies (in Greece, Iran, Europe and North America). From what my supervisor tells me, they are not impressed with Lendering’s mainly weak command of a number of facts (e.g. date of Croesus’ defeat, Persepolis, Median architecture, Mithraism, etc.). Overall, his command of the facts are weak, as are some of his views with Ancient Greece, however the latter is subject for another forum. Suffice it to say that Lendering is not considered an expert of Greece either, at least from what I have run across in the halls of academe in Greece.

May I add that Lendering’s review is rude, biased, unbalanced, if nor unfair. But more importantly he reveals serious misconceptions with respect to Iranian archaeology, linguistics, militaria, and other domains pertinent to Iranica. Again, my information relies upon my supervisors in Greece and here in Canada.

The evaluation of Lendering’s “review” by the aforementioned experts have not gone formally in print or on-line, but I do promise to post these for you as soon as my PhD supervisor permits.

Allow me to share one blatant error made by Lendering. He claims in his website and in his “review” of Farrokh that all reports of dangers to the Pasargardae site are “hoaxes”.

This shows one thing clearly: Lendering has no clue of what is happening inside of Iran. A number of high-profile sites have already been destroyed by the local authorities– most recently parts of Susa were bulldozed to make room for a hotel. This was reported by Iran’s press reports (not some outside diaspora outfit). The news outlet is Mehr News and entitled “Bulldozing Iran's 7000-year-old mound for brick production” link: http://www.mehrnews.com/en/NewsDetail.aspx?NewsID=747668

The only reason the tomb of Cyrus has been spared is due to the vociferous protests by the International Community against the present government of Iran. It is now a UNESCO heritage site. Lendering’s “review” is certainly false and misleading in that respect. This raises some questions as to the reliability of Lendering’s “reviews” in general. Bachman simply parrots Lendering’s personal views (and attacks) against Farrokh. His position is fundamentally weak as Lendering’s claim of expertise on ancient Iran can now be questioned (as revealed by the single example above).

Mr. Weller chooses to ignore the evaluation of Farrokh and his book by the many academics in Greece, Hungary, the United States, Iran, England, etc. Examples include Dr. Patrick Hunt of Stanford University, Dr. Llewlleyn-Jones in Great Britain, Professor Emeritus of Harvard, Professor Nikolaz Kachareva, Dr. David Khoupenia, etc. I have seen this on a number of websites and have heard of this numerous times in Greece and now in Canada. But these are already on the Wikipedia site. One example is Farrokh’s book that was evaluated and short-listed for the Benjamin Franklin Book award this year.

Mr. Weller is biased and unbalanced in his judgment. This explains why he has ignored the vast majority of positive evaluations in favor of one singular and yet unreliable review. Logically, this indicates an ulterior motive and a non-academic agenda.

As I noted in the Kaveh Farrokh forum, I have entered this discussion simply because I see an unbalanced process taking place, one that reveals plenty of bias. Interestingly, the whole negative tone of this bias seems to be under the subtle direction of Jona Lendering, who has clearly expressed his personal dislike of Kaveh Farrokh. Again it is very interesting that only his (mainly unreliable) view is being expostulated here. This is understandable as the main objective of gentlemen such as Mr. Weller appears to be portraying a selective view, one that may potentially mislead readers. Fortunately, the issue of imbalance has been raised.

Natasha Adamios —Preceding unsigned comment added by Natasha Adamios (talk • contribs) 20:25, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I strongly suggest you not criticise other editors. The problem here is that I have not seen all those evaluations, and no one else seems to have found them and put them on Wikipedia. We need reliable sources, which in most cases means public sources, for any article. You will see me saying the exact same thing on a variety of unrelated articles. I've just looked for the Benjaman Franklin Book Award. I find information about it here:  but searching the site on 'Farrokh' brings up nothing. If you could find something on this that would be constructive.


 * I also ask you again to understand that this is not a forum. If you have something to contribute towards the article, please discuss it here. Not websites, not anything you know, sources that meet our policies and guidelines - as I've told you already, I put a welcome menu on your talk page to help you. And I would like to help you but you've decided to attack me, which makes it rather difficult for me. The review you talk about is on a web site and I would not use it in an article. Just as I don't think Kouphenia's review should be used either. Are there any reviews published in journals, etc? Doug Weller (talk) 20:46, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Dear Doug,

Nobody is attacking you. It is youwho is attacking Farrokh. You keep stating that on-line references are invlaid yet you apply a double-standard and cite Lendering's biased reivew. This is what I am pointing your attention towards. You have not answered why you cite Lendering which is an on-line source as well unprofessional and unrelaible. Yet you felt telt that this was valid. btw I already cited one reference regarding citation of on-line references (Cone & Foster I beleive) in the Kaveh Farrokh discussion group. I simply do not have the smae volume of time that you have - I notice that you took less than 20 minutes to respond to me. I only iwsh I had the same amount of spare time. I already mentioned this to you: I am not an epxert of Persia. I cited my comments to point out that element of bias here. I woudl not have expended much effort had I not seen your citation of Lendering and your attemopt to cite Iranscope as Farrokh site (yes i know you claim differently). As on-line references are unrelaible, then I guess you are retracting your citation of Lendering. I suspect that will not happen as that link promotes the view you wish to convey. Despite the fact that I already gave you the names of numerous professors from major universities who are independent referees to Farrokh's work here, you simply ignore this. I am so sorry, but I do see a balanced discussion here and again it is your use of Lendering which undermines your sincerity. I apologize if this unsettles you, but I feel it as my duty to highlight the inconsistencies here. Lendering is not an epxert of Iran and makes mistakes. Yet you avoid explaining why you cite him as a source. He is also rather rude and very biased in his posting. So far you have used Wikipedia to promote Lendering's personal views. This is the challenge: you evade the question each time. If you do not wish to answer why you promote Lendering, then that is your prerogative.I simply do not have the volume fo time that you have to engage in the picayune. I have laready stated what needs ot stated in the name of balance and fairness.

Natasha Adamios —Preceding unsigned comment added by Natasha Adamios (talk • contribs) 05:44, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
 * There are no discussion groups on Wikipedia. You don't seem to understand that the purpose of this page is to discuss and improve the article, not to discuss the book, the author, etc. Lendering is not mentioned in the article. Until you can provide a source for your claims about numerous professors acting as independent referees (what does that mean anyway), we can't use them in the article. Please take time to learn about what Wikipedia is. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia reporting what reliable and veriable third party sources have published about a subject. What you can do in an essay or a PhD thesis is not relevant, as Wikipedia is not a place for original research. And I am not promoting Lendering or using him as a source for the article, so I am not evading your question. And it is clear to anyone who reads the article's history that I didn't try to cite Iranscope as Farrokh's site - Nepaheshgar changed the link, see - before that, the review was sourced to Farrokh's website. That you can't provide anything usable in either of the related articles, yet you know so much about Farrokh, suggests that there isn't anything more about him Wikipedia can use. Doug Weller (talk) 06:19, 22 September 2008 (UTC)