User:Binabik80


 * I became a Wikipedian at 4.38 GMT on 24 November 2004, when I corrected John Lambert's date of death from 1694 to 1684.
 * I reached 1000 edits at 23.57 GMT on 30 March 2005, when I wikified the years in the "Age of Augustus" section of Roman empire.
 * I reached 2000 edits at 15.42 GMT on 23 April 2005, when I fixed the link to Scipio Africanus in the article on Seville after moving his article from Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus Major.
 * I reached 3000 edits at 23.18 GMT on 22 November 2005, when I de-italicised Pope Leo X's birth name at the beginning of his article.

Antony or Antonius?
A number of ancient Romans are commonly known by anglicised names in English; Pompey the Great, Octavian, Mark Antony, Virgil and Livy are probably the most famous, besides a whole plethora of Roman emperors. At the talk page for Caesarion I found a question (posted several months previously) asking if Octavian and Antony, both referred to in the article, should be called by their anglicised or Latin names. The only response was a rather dismissive (and uncalled for) reply questioning the relevance of the topic to the ultimate fate of the universe.

Personally I feel quite strongly that we should be using the anglicised names in our articles. These are their names in the English language, which is what we're writing in, and they're the names that both laymen and scholars use. Most crucially, we're here to inform, not confuse, and our database is made more accessible by the use of anglicised names. The average internet user, coming here for answers, can instantly link references to men named Antony or Virgil to a context he already knows and create an understanding for him/herself of what s/he's reading about. But when we start talking about Antonius or Vergilius Maro, that same reader is left stranded in a sea of context-less, complicated-looking Latin names which don't add anything to his/her knowledge or understanding. In fact, not only do we not increase understanding by using Latinate names, but, since even scholars use the anglicised forms, we risk coming off like a bunch of amateurish intellectual snobs just trying to show off how smart we are (while in fact showing off quite the opposite).

Wikipedians seem divided on the issue. There are probably more people using anglicisations, but there's still a sizeable chunk--particularly, for some reason, regarding Antony and Octavian--who use the original Latin forms. (The Mark Antony article itself referred to them as Antonius and Octavianus throughout, until I copyedited it, and the article's talk page even contained a request to change the article's title to Marcus Antonius.) I actually think this is a pretty broad issue, striking at the very nature of the accessibility of our work on ancient Rome to the people who come here looking for answers, so I'm using this page to advocate the use of anglicised names for those Romans who are known by such in English. Feel free to weigh in on my my talk page.

Encyclopaedia Britannica
Within a few months of finding Wikipedia, I ended up at the article on Lawrence of Arabia and was rather surprised not to find any mention of his alleged rape at Dara. I checked the article's talk page and found a brief mention that someone had found a source claiming to disprove that the rape had ever happened, but nothing more.

I feel quite strongly that an incident as significant in the life of Lawrence of Arabia, and as integral to his legend, as Dara should be included in the article--even if just to state that historians concluded it never happened--and, given the rigour of the article and the extensive amount of work that, its history page makes clear, has gone into it, I could only assume that the it hadn't been included because of disagreement over its veracity.

So, neither being an expert on T.E. Lawrence nor having the time to devote to researching the incident in the depth it deserves, I asked myself what I could do. I concluded that I needed what might be considered the "quintessential standard reference source"--a source that could be considered to sum up the "current accepted scholarly position" in the English language, and that, ideally, I had access to. In short, I needed the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

So I looked up Lawrence in Britannica and inserted its summary into the article (in this case, that he was "apparently" homosexually brutalised while at Dara) and, since I knew the addition might be contentious, I added a reference to the encyclopaedia. A few weeks later, this reference was questioned on the article's talk page; the question was asked whether Britannica's account offers anything to substantiate the claim of the rape any further than the account Lawrence gave himself in The Seven Pillars of Widsom.

Well, no it doesn't, and, as I said in my reply, questioning the reference on those grounds is perfectly valid, but it's also not my point. Britannica shouldn't be taken as "proof" of a historical account's veracity; like us, it's an encyclopaedia, intended not as a primary source or even a secondary source, but rather a tertiary source, collating and summarising what the secondary sources have to say on the manner in a concise and accessible format.

But it's the best, most thorough and--critically--best respected tertiary source in the English-speaking world, and as such, to me it's the starting point for deciding how contentious issues are presented. If you want to dispute what Britannica says based on other sources you have, that's fine--in fact, it's encouraged. But if Britannica says it's true, then you have to acknowledge and dispute it, not just omit it.

Of course, debate is the cornerstone of intellectual growth, so if you want to take issue with this, or present another possible standard reference, I invite you to do so on my talk page.

Interests
My greatest interests are, and always have been, learning and writing. I'm an aspiring author and an avid book collector; my personal library currently contains approximately 1000 volumes.

I have a broad interest in much of the humanities, especially history, religion, myth, language and society; my main interest focuses on European and Mediterranean civilisations, from the Metal Ages until the present. Within these confines, I'm particularly interested in the times of great change, when people find their entire society and way of life torn apart and rebuilt into a "new order". For instance:


 * The destruction of Mycenaean civilisation and its replacement, after the Greek Dark Ages of ca. 1100 BC-ca. 800 BC, with Archaic Greek civilisation.
 * The transformation of the oligarchic Roman Republic into the Augustan Principate from ca. 132 BC-27 BC.
 * The dissolution of the Roman Empire, into Germanic kingdoms in the West and the mediaeval Byzantine Empire in the East.
 * The complete overturning of the ancién regime by the French Revolution, and its eventual replacement by the Napoleonic Empire.
 * The broad wave of strife that swept Europe following the First World War, resulting in the foundation of the Soviet Union and, subsequently, in the establishment of Nazi Germany and several other Fascist regimes.

In fiction, I call myself a "fan" of alternate history, science fiction, fantasy and historical fiction, though I'm an extremely critical audience and, consequently, often have a great deal of difficulty finding material I can enjoy.

I'm also a sport fan, most especially of association football, American football and men's college basketball. In association football I support Bradford City, Manchester United and, as in all things, England; in the NFL I support the New England Patriots; and in college sports I support the University of Florida Gators.

Lists of 5 Things in Whatever Topics I Choose
The history sections are probably going to be pretty Eurocentric. Items on the lists aren't ranked, which is why they're bulletted, not numbered.

5 Men Who Shaped Europe and Our World

 * Caesar Augustus, a Roman
 * Saint Paul of Tarsus, a Christianized Jew
 * Charlemagne, a Frank
 * Sir Winston Churchill, an Englishman
 * Adolf Hitler, an Austrian

5 Men of History Who Don't Always Get a Fair Shake

 * Alfred the Great, who too often sinks into obscurity nowadays
 * Oliver Cromwell, whose political ideals were a century ahead of his time. Anything bad the Irish have to say about him, however, is probably justified, unfortunately
 * Alexander Hamilton, due to a great propaganda victory of Thomas Jefferson
 * Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, a loyal servant of his country in war and peace
 * John Quincy Adams, due to a great propaganda victory of Andrew Jackson

5 Men of History Who Are Overrated

 * Cicero, a much weaker individual than we give him credit for nowadays.
 * Cato the younger, who was always willing to compromise his principles when his own interests were at stake, just not when his political opponents' were
 * Marcus Junius Brutus, Gaius Cassius Longinus and the rest of the senators who assassinated Julius Caesar. Most of them acted out of jealousy at their rivals receiving greater political advancement than themselves under Caesar's new regime, not out of some morally supreme regard for the Roman Republic
 * Thomas Jefferson, never willing to put his money where his mouth was. American society owes far more to Alexander Hamilton--and is better off for it
 * Andrew Jackson, a genocidal tyrant who has somehow managed to carve himself a reputation as the great democratiser of the American Republic

My Favourite 5 Men of History
That there are crossovers between this list and the 5 Underrated list should surprise no one.


 * Julius Caesar
 * Oliver Cromwell
 * Benjamin Franklin
 * Sir Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington
 * Sir Winston Churchill

My 5 Favourite Novels
They're all still packed away at the moment, so you'll have to wait on ISBNs. Of course, this is a wiki, so you could just add them yourself.


 * Dune by Frank Herbert (1965)
 * SS-GB by Len Deighton (1978)
 * The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (1979)
 * Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn by Tad Williams
 * The Dragonbone Chair (1988)
 * Stone of Farewell (1990)
 * To Green Angel Tower (1993)
 * Sailing to Sarantium by Guy Gavriel Kay (1998)

5 (actually 6) Great Works of History or Biography
For the general reader. Since academic works need to be kept up to date, years refer to my edition, not necessarily the first edition.


 * Caesar: A Biography by Christian Meier (1982), ISBN 1567315747
 * The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill, Alone 1932-1940 by William Manchester (1989), ISBN 0385313314
 * Dreadnought: Britain, Germany, and the Coming of the Great War by Robert K. Massie (1992), ISBN 0345375564
 * The history of the Byzantine Empire by John Julius Norwich:
 * Byzantium: The Early Centuries (2001), ISBN 0394537785
 * Byzantium: The Apogee (1998), ISBN 0394537793
 * Byzantium: The Decline and Fall (2001), ISBN 0679416501
 * Also by Lord Norwich: A History of Venice (1982), ISBN 0679721975
 * The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin by Gordon S. Wood (2004), ISBN 159420019X

5 Good Historical Reference Works
For the general reader. Since academic works need to be kept up to date, years refer to my edition, not necessarily the first edition.


 * Chronology of the Ancient World: 10,000 BC-AD 799 by H.E.L. Mellersh (1976), ISBN 0091782597
 * The Harper Encyclopedia of Military Biography by Trevor N. Dupuy, Curt Johnson and David L. Bongard (1992), ISBN 0062700154
 * The World War One Source Book by Philip J. Haythornthwaite (1994), ISBN 1854091026
 * Encyclopedia of the Third Reich by Louis L. Snyder (1995), ISBN 1856482197
 * Handbook to Life in Ancient Rome by Lesley Adkins and Roy A. Adkins (1998), ISBN 0195123328

My 6 Favourite Movies

 * Cleopatra (1963), though I'll be the first to acknowledge its flaws
 * Star Wars (1977)
 * Pleasantville (1998)
 * Wonder Boys (2000)
 * Enemy at the Gates (2001)
 * Enigma (2001)

My 5 Favourite TV Programmes

 * Doctor Who (1963-1989)
 * I, Claudius (1975)
 * Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994)
 * Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993-1999)
 * Farscape (1999-2003)

Legal Notice
I agree to multi-licence all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below:

la:Usor:IanRacey