Talk:The Darkening Age

Undue emphasis on negative reviews
Over half of the article is made up of several paragraphs of various people criticising the book. If an article is more concerned with criticism of a book rather than the book itself, then there's something obviously wrong with it. Not to mention that the criticisms are mostly repeating the same thing, so listing them individually in great detail serves only to bloat the article, and skew it in one particular direction. How many times does "This book is one-sided" needs to appear? How does multiple repeats of unsupported assertions like "The Dark Ages is a myth and has been debunked", or platitudes like calling the book "a travesty", or asserting, without argument that "no real academic historian will take it seriously", help improve the article? And what is the point of including, accusations of "anti-christian bias" coming from christian sources, when such accusations should by default be always met with the most intense scrutiny? This article is showing signs of bias against the book and it's writer. 46.97.170.112 (talk) 11:33, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
 * "If an article is more concerned with criticism of a book rather than the book itself, then there's something obviously wrong with it. " Are you new to Wikipedia? Nearly all of our articles on books and films focuse on their reception by critics, not what the works themselves are about. Dimadick (talk) 12:39, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
 * There's a difference between having a reception section, and having a reception section be artificially bloated with redundant negative reception, to the point where it takes up over half of the body of the entire article, and my comment made it abundantly clear that that is what I'm talking about. And I know that, because I'm not new to wikipedia. 46.97.170.112 (talk) 14:16, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I agree it's time to clean up the Reception section. Some quotes are too long, a couple non-credible sources can be taken out (refs 3 ands 14). I do think criticism from academics associated with Christian institutions or publications should be included, but there's enough of them (and similar enough) so that they can be rolled up into a paragraph that says something along the lines of "Reaction from Christian institutions and publication was less positive, with criticism about the choice of sources, the limitations of the evidence presented and what they see as the author's tendency to draw wide conclusions from isolated incidents.", with the refs inserted at the relevant places.
 * I'm going to leave this here for a couple of days to see if people have comments before doing the changes. Robincantin (talk) 16:48, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
 * The reception section looks like POV-pushing at the moment. Filled with confirmation bias of WP:IDLI. Anyone wanting to take a stab at it should keep NPOV in mind. I would recommend removing quotes to begin with as Wikipedia is not a review website. --CNMall41 (talk) 17:40, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Done. Comments and further improvements welcome, of course. Robincantin (talk) 23:13, 16 April 2023 (UTC)
 * It looked a lot worse after that. The implication of the above discussion and the rewrites is that Nixey had written a brilliant book that had been attacked on religious grounds. She has written a polemic dismissed as a travesty and even a forgery by almost all serious historians of the period, religious or no. That is the reason why the criticism section emphasised negative reviews. I have deleted some fairly blatant weasel words and would remind people that we reflect the balance of academic opinion on topics. 2A02:C7C:3347:A200:20A8:7B21:40C9:BBC7 (talk) 21:00, 1 June 2023 (UTC)
 * It sounds like you have a strong opinion about the book. If you are able to support that opinion with sources please do so. The change you made adding "specialists" is an example of what should not be done as the reference does not state "specialists." --CNMall41 (talk) 00:27, 2 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Nor does it state 'Christians' although two of them are Christian publications. Cameron was a Professor of Classics at Oxford and the Jenkins is a Professor of ancient history. Moreover Thoneman did not 'claim' things, he made criticisms of the work. I have a strong opinion on BPOV edits and weasel words, I'm sorry to see you don't. 2A02:C7C:3347:A200:20A8:7B21:40C9:BBC7 (talk) 07:05, 2 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Well, edit warring isn't going to get your edit to stick. You will need consensus per WP:ONUS which you can do on the talk page. I will be more than happy to discuss further as long as you don't proceed with any additional veiled insults. --CNMall41 (talk) 07:08, 2 June 2023 (UTC)
 * How about this -check the backgrounds of the academics who have given this book positive reviews and see if any of them specialize in Late Antiquity. Because if they don't, that should be your first indication that this book is non-academic and is basically a piece of biased polemic that sounds convincing to people who are ignorant of the period. Because right now the only "weasel words" I can find in this article is a vague claim about "academics" giving the book positive reviews without informing readers that these "academics" are not experts in the period Nixey is writing about. Jonathan f1 (talk) 06:51, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
 * The problem with this kind of criticism is that there's a pattern to it. You're just distracting from the main points Nixey makes.  For example, she writes: "The great St. Augustine himself declared to a congregation in Carthage 'that all superstition of pagans and heathens should be annihilated is what God wants, God commands, God proclaims!'"  Are you going to deny this history?  Because that's what she's writing about.  Things that actually happened.  And yet all the critics are ignoring it and focusing on a typo she made or a date she got wrong. Etc. I think there's an underlying fear to this type of criticism.  They know that Nixey and other writers like her have a very dangerous idea at the heart of their narrative.  Western civilization isn't based on Christianity like we've been told, it's based on paganism.  That's the idea that they are always fighting against, but the truth of it is obvious wherever you look. Viriditas (talk) 08:05, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Let us flip this around and look at the people criticizing the book, shall we?
 * Philip Jenkins: Specializes in christianity, american history and criminal justice. Also infamous for denying the sex/abuse cases within the catholic church.
 * Peter Thonemann: physicist. Completely unrelated field.
 * Tim Whitmarsh: He's an academic of classical LITERATURE. Not a historian of late antiquity.
 * Avril Cameron is indeed a historian of late antiquity, but The Tablet should not be considered a reliable source, especially when it comes to criticism of christianity. As a mater of fact, all criticisms from christian institutions should be automatically disregarded because... of course they don't like it.
 * So by your own standards, that disqualifies all academics attacking the book.
 * You know who IS absolutely qualified? Peter Frankopan, who gave the book a positive review. One of the only two positive reviews acknowledged by the article.
 * And as Viriditas above pointed out, the "limited evidence" these critics bring up as a point against the book happens to be an incontrovertible smoking gun, and is thus more than sufficient. 46.97.170.182 (talk) 14:25, 4 June 2024 (UTC)