Talk:Andreas Everardus van Braam Houckgeest

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This article was automatically assessed because at least one article was rated and this bot brought all the other ratings up to at least that level. BetacommandBot 10:41, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Question of relevance

Amban edited out the following; and of course, I have no difficulty in understanding the logic which motivated that decision. I believe that the text should be restored, but let me mull over how best to explain why. In the meantime, the clarity of his view is amply demonstrated here where all can see. I would have thought the text might have been perceived as inappropriate because of its POV, or because it was awkwardly presented; but those question hasn't been raised ... yet. --Ooperhoofd 20:55, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

• (cur) (last) 19:36, 14 October 2007 Amban (Talk | contribs) (4,871 bytes) (→Work - deletred irrelevant remarks.) (undo)

Work [Original version -- citation with critical analysis]

A kind of immortality accrues to the author of a book still read and referenced centuries after its initial publication -- as is demonstrated in the unanticipated effects of van Braam's magnum opus:

• ______. An authentic account of the embassy of the Dutch East-India company to the court of the emperor of China in the years 1794 and 1795. London, Printed for R. Phillips, 1798.

A minor aside from an early 20th century monograph on the Taihō reform in seventh-century Japan illustrates a kind of far-reaching effect:

The idea of one-man rule has thus become a second nature with the Chinese people, who, when the Dutch ambassadors visited Peking in 1795, could not, is is said, realize that there could on earth exist such a monstrosity as a Dutch "Republic."^[1]

-- Henri Cordier in Lavisse and Rambaud's Histoire Générale, VIII, p. 953. Probably taken from Van Braam. How the idea of monarchical rule was ingrained in the Chinese mind is illustrated in an amusing remark of the governor of Canton in 1821, that those Americans who had been engaged in the smuggling trade in opinion (sic)[opium] must have been emboldened to it because "they had no king to rule over them." The Chinese Repository, VI, 520 (March 1838). [emphasis added] ^[2]

Work [Current version -- citation only, no anlaysis]

• ______. An authentic account of the embassy of the Dutch East-India company to the court of the emperor of China in the years 1794 and 1795. London, Printed for R. Phillips, 1798.

Sorry, but I just don't see what the remarks are doing there, it looks too much like creative writing to me and it messes up the section on van Braam's works. Besides, what I think this article really needs right now is a close-up portrait of van Braam.--Amban 02:17, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

First: You're right about the need for a better portrait. There's a modest, private van Braam museum maintained by his family. That could be a likely source for a formal, life-portrait paitned made in his later years? As a matter of fact, the provenance of the contemporary "portrait" already posted is impeccable. Maybe there is no better image than a re-scanned enlargement of the seated European who is not wearing a hat. The caption may need to be improved?

Second: I'm not really disagreeing with you about that questionable text. You deleted a few lines from this article. I didn't undo that edit -- rather, I moved those sentences here. This isn't a "right" or "wrong" issue, nor is it ripe for posting at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style .... Let's just say that I'm juggling apples and oranges; and for now, I'd just like for you (or anyone else) to consider the following:

• Ōtomo no Yakamochi is considered to have been one of the compilers of the Man'yōshū anthology. The article on Yakamochi includes a obligatory mention of an association with the Man'yōshū project, but there is neither analysis nor discussion of literary or cultural consequences. The intellectual parsing construct which distinguishes between a man and his written work is clear enough; and I think it's fair to say that you've applied the same "filter" (or pattern-logic) to van Braam and his book. By extension, I'd expect you to adopt a similar parsing approach in your review of the as-yet-unwritten article about Ō no Yasumaro and his more tenuous relationship to the Kojiki. Have I taken your point?

For now, the first step of a very modest dispute strategy is to position your edit in a plausible, favorable context. --Ooperhoofd 15:58, 15 October 2007 (UTC)