Talk:The Evil Empire: 101 Ways That England Ruined the World

POV reception
The reception section is largely based on the words of two articles, all against the book. It needs a cleanup to remain neutral. IMagainstYOU (talk) 21:11, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm not aware of any article that viewed the book in a positive light, it is widly regarded as an anglophobic and racist book. 94.168.210.8 (talk) 04:12, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Neutrality
As an Englishman, I personally take offence that this book has been given such prominence on a site like Wikipedia, but that is not the reason why I am questioning its neutrality. The reason I am questioning it is because this page reads more like some advertising gimmick for the book. There is no attempt to highlight the historical inaccuracies or the overtly anglophoic bias of the work. Instead, it just reads as simply: "this book came out, the Brits hated it, end of story." I'd recommend that this article be expanded to accomodate the two areas I mentioned earlier, and expand the Reaction section to mention responses to the book in countries other than the United Kingdom. User:Crablogger 06:32 GMT, 24 April 2009
 * I'm English too. In fact, I live in Berkshire.  If you look above, you can see this article was nominated for deletion 9 days ago.  It was concluded that it is a notable book.  Plus, I researched heavily across the Internet to find more info, but couldn't find it.  Also, Conservapedia isn't a reliable source.  Like Wikipedia, it is edited by almost anyone, so it can't be reliable.  Plus, how is the book being advertised?  Most of the coverage on this article is negative.  I have removed your recent edits as they are being somewhat disruptive.  WP:IDONTLIKEIT isn't a valid reason to go about changing an article.  I don't like the book, and I certainly don't agree with what it says, but regardless the coverage it got means it is notable, as the AFD also concluded.  Also, if this were POV, it would never made it onto the front page of Wikipedia as a DYK.  JEdgarFreeman (talk) 10:21, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
 * "There is no attempt to highlight the historical inaccuracies or the overtly anglophoic bias of the work" This I am also amazed by.  Max Hastings's quotes on the article alone tackle these two things, and he's not the only one to do so that is featured on the article.  JEdgarFreeman (talk) 10:25, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
 * If that's the case, then could they please be placed within the Wikipedia article itself? At present, it seems to me as though Wikipedia isn't making any effort to highlight such inaccuracies, which was one of the reasons why I voted for deletion - its simply a list of newspaper reviews about the book and not an actual documentation on the book itself. User:Crablogger 13:17, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I am confused by your request. Max Hastings is quoted already: e.g. "as if every bar bore in Philadelphia, where the author hails from, got together one night and wrote down every half-assed insult they could remember about Britain, somewhat handicapped by the fact that none did high school history past sixth grade."  Plus, please remember (if I'm right in presuming you are talking about a previous version of the article that you said you voted delete for) this current version is a heavily improved (as noted by several editors in the last AFD article) analysis of the book.   JEdgarFreeman (talk) 14:34, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
 * My apologies if what I said isn't very clear. What I'm basically requesting is a handful of examples of claims made in the book contrasted with academic sources that prove that the claims are false. Some of them are relatively easy - take They Supported the Confederacy. According to Grasse, the proof is simply that the Confederate Battle Flag resembles the Union Jack. Historical sources have shown that, whilst we sold Lee Enfield rifles to the Confederacy, we were in no position to support them militarily due to the threat to the cotton trade on British textile mills. I'm not saying list all 101 examples - that would make the article too long and pedantic - but just a few examples just to highlight the fact that this book cannot be taken seriously as a textbook. User:Crablogger 06:00, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry I misunderstood. I understand your reasoning behind your idea, but unfortunately we cannot do it.  WP:SYNTHESIS says that we shouldn't go about taking other sources completely unconnected to the book, and then applying them to the arguments of The Evil Empire.  To do so is an element of original research, since we are artificially creating a counter-argument to The Evil Empire's contentions, and inherently POV because we would have the deliberate aim of making such a counter-argument.  I do appreciate you don't like this book, and I don't like it either.  But I truly fear there isn't much we can do.  Plus, to go about trying to prove this book cannot be taken seriously as a textbook is also POV; we must be neutral in our approach.  I do think, nevertheless, that most people can work out from reading this article that the book is, to quote Quentin Davis on a TV show, a "loo book".  JEdgarFreeman (talk) 09:53, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

I suppose the argument is that if it exists, it's encyclopaedic. Of course, an American writing about Britain's evil history is of great ironic value; perhaps he will write a sequel in the present tense about how his own country is currently ruining the world, getting beaten in wars against Third World nations, etc? Anyway, at least a book about Britain will have plenty in it. How many pages would the author manage in a tome about Ireland, Australia and other countries who have done nothing? Guv2006 (talk) 11:55, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

"Getting beaten in wars against Third World nations" Because in that simple british mind "winning" a war means whoever burns down the others country wins, right? America certainly isn't getting "beaten". But, you know who did lose a war against farmers armed with shovels, right? The british empire. And how arrogant are you to say Ireland and Australia have done nothing? What does Britain do nowadays? IMagainstYOU (talk)

Relevancy
Is there any real need for this book to have an article on Wikipedia? It's already been stated on Talk:Evil empire that the book cannot seriously be considered to be an academic work, and all this article seems to do is just highlight the strain the book made on the so-called Special relationship when first released. In my opinion, that does not make it notable enough for an entry. Crablogger, 11:21 GMT, 23 April 2009
 * See above; only 9 days ago an AFD was held, and it concluded it is notable. JEdgarFreeman (talk) 10:13, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Out of interest who came to this conclusion? It doesn't appear to meet a single criterion for WP:N (books). Maverickbar (talk) 15:56, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Synopsis
At the moment, this seems a little short compared to the Reaction section. Should we expand Synopsis to include other arguments made in the book or should we just expand on the existing points already listed? Crablogger (talk) 04:34, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Non-fiction
The article states that this is a non-fiction work, which I believe is clearly untrue, given the absurdist claims such as that British nobility are homosexual. Kansan (talk) 15:46, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

The Author
There seems to be very little info on the author. Perhaps this needs to be expanded. After all, his critism of the English seems pretty forceful - I, for one, would like to know whether he has:

a) any kind of agenda that motivates such a withering attack. b) any kind of academic credibility that justifies it. 82.5.68.95 (talk) 12:27, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

View it For The Joke It Is
I have removed completely uncited edits and following the source material given the article a semblance of context, which is this: it's a joke and we all need to view as such, best wishes. Twobells (talk) 11:59, 8 January 2016 (UTC)
 * It does appear to be a deliberate piece of performance art rather than a serious work of popular history. The fact that the author conflates England and Britain may be part of the joke, or just ignorance. --Ef80 (talk) 12:59, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

Pathetic
LOL, a two sentences explanation of what the book is about and then two articles against it? Typical anglo bs There aare even triggered Angerlanders who wish for this articles to be removed! USA and uk always aim to hide their evil