Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2013 January 21

= January 21 =

Hereditary Democracy article?
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia/2013/01/20131201843418977.html

What is the actual name of the Hereditary Democracy article? Hcobb (talk) 02:32, 21 January 2013 (UTC)


 * I don't see anything about that in the link that you provided. What makes you think there is an article?  RudolfRed (talk) 02:48, 21 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Well, given that most Google links refer to the fact that several members of the same family have been prime minister of India it would seem to me to be a made up term to cover that. The closest I could find to something like that is Constitutional monarchy. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 13:24, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
 * A "hereditary democracy" sounds like a modification of the elective monarchy idea: access to the executive position is restricted to members of a certain family. It could also mean that the executive is nominally a democracy, but that members of the same family are repeatedly elected to it.  -- Jayron  32  13:55, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Similar articles we have are Political family and Family dictatorship. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 16:08, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Are there any sources about Tokugawa Ieyasu's palmistry?
Still troubling with the unreferenced claim that he had a single transverse palmar crease.--Inspector (talk) 03:43, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I'd remove it, then. It's hardly an important fact to begin with. AlexTiefling (talk) 10:37, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Agree, plus I suggest placing it in the Talk:Tokugawa Ieyasu page for visibility. There it might attract the attention of an editor willing and able to follow through. -- Deborahjay (talk) 11:07, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Is this picture a valid source?--Inspector (talk) 05:48, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

West and Johnston publishers
West and Johnston, Richmond, Virginia, were the publishers of the Confederate version of Les Miserables. What is the history of the company? RNealK (talk) 23:02, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Some information in this Google Books preview; Virginia at War, 1864 edited by William Davis and in The Imagined Civil War: Popular Literature of the North & South, 1861-1865 By Alice Fahs. Alansplodge (talk) 19:52, 23 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks, that's helpful. RNealK (talk) 23:08, 24 January 2013 (UTC)