Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2021 June 10

= June 10 =

Largest country in history?
The Soviet Union was the largest country in terms of area for the almost seven decades it existed. But what was the largest country in terms of area in history? Was it also the Soviet Union or some other country? J I P &#124; Talk 00:53, 10 June 2021 (UTC)


 * See List of largest empires; according to the article the Soviet Union was the largest for 25 years. Zoozaz1 talk  01:13, 10 June 2021 (UTC)


 * Not surprised that the British Empire is at the top of the list; it had Canada, Australia, the Indian subcontinent, and a few other things.... AnonMoos (talk) 03:22, 10 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Lo, all our pomp of yesterday / Is one with Nineveh and Tyre! (Recessional). Alansplodge (talk) 10:29, 10 June 2021 (UTC)
 * The Soviet Union would have a) been the largest Empire by the time the of the Balfour Declaration of 1926 when it was established that all Dominions of the British Empire were essentially sovereign states on their own, which was formalized into law by the Statute of Westminster 1931, this functionally made the three largest chunks of the British Empire (Canada, Australia, and South Africa) independent, and by the same time period the Soviet Union was fully incorporated as a thing, so from at least 1926/1931 the Soviet Union was the largest sovereign state in the world. There is ALSO nothing special about 1975; the Soviet Union remained the largest country in the world until it officially broke up in 1991 with the Belovezha Accords.  I have NO IDEA why that list says that the Soviet Union only existed from 1950-1975, or whatever it is saying, but that is bafflingly not true... Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, Russia has been the largest country in the world.  The largest empire in history was the British Empire by 1920, only a few years before it started to break up.  -- Jayron 32 16:19, 10 June 2021 (UTC)
 * That's a little simplistic. The Statute of Westminster did not magically convert Australia, Canada and New Zealand into fully independent states. In Australia's case, there's a strong argument that says we did not achieve total legal independence until the passage of the Australia Act 1986. Also, you had an a), but no b) or c). --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  19:26, 10 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Nothing you said I would have disagreed with, nor did I say anything that would have led one to believe I thought anything else but what you said. -- Jayron 32 13:58, 11 June 2021 (UTC)
 * That's the difference between true and referenced. The year 1975 ist referenced (with a reference named Taagepera, Rein (1978)) and perfectly adequate, for the 1978 paper (I didn't check it) is eventually based upon 1975 data. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 12:23, 11 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Referenced doesn't mean "referenced to something which is true and/or useful". We shouldn't be providing references to things which are known to be wrong.  verifiability means that something is "able to be shown to be true".  (veri- truth, -fy to cause, make, or show, -able, the ability to do something, -ity the condition of being; thus verifiability is "the condition of being able to show something is true")  Truth is not a sufficient condition, but it is a necessary condition for something to be verifiable.  Things which are demonstrably wrong don't become true merely because someone else wrote down a wrong thing.  -- Jayron 32 13:58, 11 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Note that the column in question is "Approximate period", with all years ending in multiples of 25. If we offered a more precise date for the USSR, it would be out of place, and presumably the source's author figured it was more reasonable to give the approximate end date as 1975 rather than 2000.  Nyttend backup (talk) 14:31, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

I recently found a paper that claims the Mongol Empire may have reached all the way to the Arctic Ocean, which if true would have made it the largest empire ever. https://www.academia.edu/37799970/The_Mongol_Empire_s_Northern_Border_Re_evaluating_the_Surface_Area_of_the_Mongol_Empire Iapetus (talk) 18:35, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

Isabel Thomas
Hello, Wikipedians. If possible, I'd like to have some WP:GNG-good refs for Isabel Thomas (and that's "just" a WP:INTERVIEW, not optimal), author of more than 100 science books for children. Her books have been written about in WSJ and NYT (that's T, not P). Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 14:23, 10 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Another interview: . Snippets of personal info can be gleaned from, , , good enough for independent sourcing. --Lambiam 20:42, 10 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks for trying! Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:55, 11 June 2021 (UTC)
 * I can add a couple more, but still not as in-depth as you’d like. She talks a bit about her life at the end of this interview also: . There’s a screenshot of local newspaper article at . And you can source her shortlisting for book prizes to, . 70.67.193.176 (talk) 14:57, 11 June 2021 (UTC)


 * The The Herts Advertiser was the best so far. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:37, 11 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Her book Fox: A Circle of Life Story probably meets GNG though. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:44, 11 June 2021 (UTC)