Talk:Robert Conquest

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Inception–March 2007

[edit] Notes for expansion of article

A 1979 collection of essays by Conquest, The Abomination of Moab is mentioned here. [1] Seems to be at least partially about art criticism, thus not appropriate for listing in the existing bibliography in our article, labelled "Historical works".
Article also mentions that Conquest "also doubles as a poet and literary critic", two aspects of hs career not mentioned in our article as far as I can tell.
-- Writtenonsand (talk) 19:55, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Needs cleanup for neutrality and weasel problems

Article needs cleanup to remove formulations such as

• "That a known Communist should have been allowed to join the intelligence service seems extraordinary in retrospect"
• "the Army seems to have taken the view that"
• "Conquest's time with the IRD has sparked some controversy, becoming a favorite topic of many critics"
• "Generally, these assertions are viewed with skepticism by other historians"
• "The most important aspect of the book was ..."
• "Some communists continue to deny the claims made in The Great Terror ..."
• "In an attempt to discredit Conquest's work, communist writers accuse him of relying on 'Nazi collaborators, émigrés, and the CIA'"
• "Conquest's most recent works ... may be seen as his summation of his career."

See WP:NPOV, WP:WEASEL -- Writtenonsand (talk) 20:16, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Hagiography not biography

This really is a terribly biased piece. Conquest has been widely criticised by historians (not, as this claims, simply by Communists) for - to name a few criticisms - adopting an ideological position towards the USSR that has coloured his conclusions beyond acceptability, for ignoring source material contradicting his arguments and for being too concerned with high politics. 87.127.137.165 (talk) 15:15, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

OK. As an exercise: who has made these criticisms? Where and when were they made? What, specifically, do they say? Sourced and notable criticism does belong in this article. Please bring some specific sources making the criticisms you mention, and propose text for how they should be incorporated. MastCell ^Talk 17:25, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough demands, but Wikipedia should really be setting the anon user a better another example here. The article is full of claims about what "most historians", or some variant of the phrase, think - which I suspect are not simply weasel-worded but are false. Kalkin (talk) 04:36, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Agreed that these should be cited and attributed, as should criticism. MastCell ^Talk 17:52, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree and removed some of the most contentious and completely unsourced garbage. Remember, this is a BLP. If someone wants to place this back, please provide reliable sources.Biophys (talk) 19:09, 8 May 2008 (UTC)