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Reviewer: Czar (talk · contribs) 13:45, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

Hi! Always wonderful to see a book up for review. A few preliminary thoughts:

  • There is a common structure for book articles and previously reviewed articles (i.e., featured, good) demonstrate that full scope needed for breadth. In this case, if the book was highly influential, why would there only be two reviews and two paragraphs of reception, relative to the rest of the article? I would expect there to be a concise summary of the book, discussion of its publication process (development/writing/translation), and a summary of its critical reception (that paraphrases and doesn't rely on quotes).
  • The article is currently 88% summary of the book, which is undue weight. Wikipedia allows for some primary source summary for filling in details vital to the reader, but otherwise depends on reliable, secondary sources for major details to summarize. The book summary should be greatly pared down to be proportionate to the rest of the article and the other aspects of the article should be expanded. A great recent example of balanced section coverage is Why Marx Was Right.
  • As a history book, a synopsis might summarize the historical events rather than the book's perspective on the historical events. That's why reliable, secondary sources are preferable guides because they will discern what aspects of the book are most noteworthy for summarization in the synopsis. The vast majority of this current synopsis text should be removed or potentially exported to another wiki if preferable. Think about what a general reader needs to know about this book's historiographic perspective—it should cover the book in the broadest strokes and not the play-by-play details of Mao's life.
  • On that alone, the article appears to be a long way from the breadth and neutrality/balance criteria (WP:GACR) so I would recommend withdrawing the current nomination, working through those changes, and renominating, but if you have the time to make the changes imminently, totally open to keeping the nomination open and re-reviewing when ready. This appears to be your first book nomination so I want to accommodate and encourage here! :)

Other points for general improvement of breadth; misc.

  • Details on publication history are generally primary sources—interviews with the author/translator, the publisher's site itself, so those are the places where using a primary source is truly necessary.
  • When was the book first published and when was it translated? There are Template:Infobox book fields for each.
  • For hints on where to expand the Reception, look to pull quotes from the publisher's website. In this case, we can chase the Ian Johnson published quote to this NYRB article.
  • Beyond the example articles above, this guide has additional advice on formatting Reception sections
  • How was the book received in China? If being banned meant that there were no reviews from China, were there no other Chinese-language reviews?
  • "Gao's book has been regarded by many scholars as the transformer of scholarly understanding of the Yan'an era" This is a bold statement that needs a direct citation. What source made this characterization? If it's a summary of the one or two scholars below, is it "many"?
  • What makes the "Asian Review of Books" https://asianreviewofbooks.com a reliable source?
  1. It is reasonably well written.
    a. (prose, spelling, and grammar):
    Needs greater concision of synopsis, per above
    b. (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):
  2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.
    a. (reference section):
    b. (citations to reliable sources):
    c. (OR):
    Spot-checking...
    d. (copyvio and plagiarism):
    Earwig's check is okay. Reception should be paraphrased in Wikipedia's own words rather than reliant on quotes.
  3. It is broad in its coverage.
    a. (major aspects):
    For breadth of coverage, expand its Reception and add a section on its Publication history
    b. (focused):
    Synopsis has undue weight and overly relies on primary sources
  4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.
    Fair representation without bias:
  5. It is stable.
    No edit wars, etc.:
  6. It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.
    a. (images are tagged and non-free content have non-free use rationales):
    Fair use image has rationale. Is there a free use photo of the author? Not required but nice for illustration. Sometimes the author's estate will provide one if asked (consent process). (Be sure for the license to come from the photographer as the copyright holder and not the subject, unless it's a selfie.)
    The two photographs do not have appropriate licenses. They appear to have been taken from social media and need to have licenses for both the country of first publication and the U.S. I'd remove them unless you have details on their first publication or can confirm whence they originated.
    b. (appropriate use with suitable captions):
  7. Overall:
    Pass/fail:
    Prelimary hold for one week, per bullets above czar 13:45, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

(Criteria marked are unassessed)

Hi @Czar: Thank you very much for your detailed review and for kindly putting it on hold. I'll definitely try to fix all the problems you mentioned in the next seven days. Regards, Thomas Meng (talk) 01:19, 16 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hi @Czar: I have tried to fix all issues in the bullet points above. Please let me know if I need to improve on anything else. Thank you, Thomas Meng (talk) 15:54, 24 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hi @Thomas Meng, the article is still very reliant on the book itself for basic details on Gao's background and claims including the book's ban in China. Are there no other reliable, secondary sources that cover these claims apart from the book itself? Primary sources should only be used sparingly here. The Summary is also still twice as long as it needs to be. Plot summary on Wikipedia tends within 400 to 700 words, usually around 500. Since this is a biography, it's okay to cover the major aspects in broad strokes and to emphasize the points that the author makes in Mao's overall life, knowing that for factual details the reader can just go to Mao's article. Usually the reviews will emphasize the parts of the book that warrant specific callout because of their specific noteworthiness, otherwise the reader largely does not need a primary source summary of Mao's general life. czar 11:08, 25 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hi @Czar: Thank you for your patience and for pointing out (again) the excessive use of primary sources. The Summary section is now trimmed down to just over 500 words, and it relies only on secondary reviews (except for three footnotes); the claim that Gao's book is banned in China is now supported by a Radio Free Asia news article; the background and publication history section now also relies completely secondary sources. Please let me know if I need to fix anything else. Thanks again, Thomas Meng (talk) 20:44, 2 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Nicely done. Will give it another look this week! czar 00:22, 3 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Do you need help accessing the Howe citation? czar 06:03, 9 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for asking. I have access to Howe's review, but Howe declared himself as a non-expert, and I didn't find any fitting place to include his review either, so that's why his review is left in the Further readings section. Thomas Meng (talk) 21:18, 9 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

(Rhetorical questions—okay to just clarify directly in the article)

  • Why does 10,000 deaths warrant mention in the lede if it isn't in the article itself?
  • Clarify: "Some scholars consider Gao's book as having transformed modern understanding of the Yan'an Rectification Movement" Is this a contemporaneous opinion upon reading the book, or is it a historian looking back over the book's impact and making the assessment that retroactive assessment that opinion has changed? Also Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Words to watch#Unsupported attributions
  • Does the book spend special attention on the Yan'an Rectification Movement? It currently doesn't say so in the lede.
  • Why does the lede give so much background on the Yan'an Rectification Movement? The lede should be paraphrasing the article and it isn't clear to the reader why it get a whole lede paragraph. Considering that this article is about the biography book and not Mao himself (who has his own article), the lede should focus on what features of the book itself were noteworthy and what effect they had.
  • Who published the English edition?
  • Normally the conditions around the English release would be part of Publication history
  • Normally any Awards would be part of the work's general Reception unless separately noteworthy

czar 07:02, 9 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Czar: Sorry for the delay and I really appreciate your patience for getting into another round of fixes. For clarity, I will list out the things I did respectively to fix each bullet point's problem:
  • Removed mention of 10,000 deaths in the lede. My apologies.
  • This sentence is now changed to: Gao's book contributed to renewing scholarly understanding of the Yan'an Rectification Movement. Whereas earlier Western scholarship subscribed to the Party-line portrayal of the Rectification Movement, as manifested by Edgar Snow, scholars who reviewed Gao's book generally consider earlier works to be obsolete. I think this would be the case of historians looking back over the book's impact and making a retroactive assessment. I modified the sentence based on the following three quotes:
From David Chang's review: In sharp contrast to the Party line that describes the movement as a salubrious thought-reform process, to which much of the earlier Western scholarship subscribed, Gao reminds readers that the relatively liberal Yan’an Spring was short-lived—less than two months long [...] How the Red Sun Rose renders obsolete much of the earlier scholarship on Yan’an and Mao. [...] Contemporary observers, such as Edgar Snow, and scholars who accepted Mao’s two-line struggle narrative were sold a bill of goods.
From Jan Kiely's review: just as the original Chinese version, along with the Taiwan-based Chen Yung-fa’s studies, did for its readership, this English version should finally demolish, for a global audience, whatever remains of the Edgar Snowian mythology of the CCP’s original moment of purity in Yan’an.
From Lucien Bianco's review: taking seriously the author’s “personal preference for case studies in historical research” (p. 715), readers must concede that this book provides a model case study, that utterly renews and enlightens our knowledge of the so far largely misunderstood Yan’an Rectification Movement
Hope that the new modification fixes the WP:OR errors.
  • Yes, the book pays special attention to the Yan'an Rectification Movement (Chapters 8—15 are devoted to the Movement). I added a note in the lede.
  • I deleted that paragraph in the lede due to disproportionality. By the way, I might need to clarify that this book is not a biography about Mao :) It's a history book on the Rectification Movement, though it's often criticized that it pays too much attention on Mao.
  • The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press published the English edition.
  • Added English publication details.
  • Merged Awards section into Reception.
Thank you again for helping improve the article. Please let me know if I need to fix anything else. Kind regards, Thomas Meng (talk) 23:32, 19 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Those are great quotes. I've bundled them into a group citation[1] to show exceptional support for an exceptional claim. The only part I'd caution is "scholars who reviewed Gao's book generally consider earlier works to be obsolete": As editors, we don't know what scholars in general think—we only know what these specific found reviews think. So best to generalize the claim ("Gao rewrote scholarly understanding", putting the strength of the claim on its sources) or to say "some scholars" and specify who rather than make the claim about all scholars.
  • Can you add page numbers to that group citation though?
Done checkY. Thomas Meng (talk)
  • Made some more edits to the article directly
  • "Gao's father came under attack and was forced to flee for fear of being beaten to death": Could this be more specific? Was he physically attacked? Threatened? Fearful based on posters?
Exactly how Gao's father came under attack is not mentioned in the source, unfortunately. The reviewer (Lucien Bianco) just quoted Gao's own words, which read

The Red Terror in the latter half of August 1966 marked me for life. My family came under attack, and one day I accidentally overheard my father telling my mother that he was unlikely to avoid trouble and that if he did not flee he might well be beaten to death. —Bianco, p163

And I realized that it's Gao's family, not his father, so I made changes to more accurately reflect the source. Thomas Meng (talk) 03:37, 16 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • "who had been purged in Yan'an" Who was purged: the authors or the books?
The authors. Changes made. checkY Thomas Meng (talk) 03:37, 16 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • "were subsequently identified as Japanese and KMT secret agents" Clarify as phrased: Were they really or just identified as such?
Most, if not all of the identified, were not secret agents. But I think this is something readers would glean from reading the book, not explicitly stated (that they were actually not secret agents). Thomas Meng (talk) 03:37, 16 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"Identified" implies truth, so changed to "labeled", which shows the ambiguity. czar 14:10, 10 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • "shifted to the cadre examination, anti-spy, and emergency rescue stages" Unclear what this means. Perhaps summarize here and let the next paragraph explain the specifics? Clarify what a cadre is here?
The sources provided quite clear summaries of the cadre examination and the emergency rescue campaign, as included in the next paragraph, but they did not do so for the anti-spy campaign. So, it's hard to give parallel summaries for the stages here.
I clarified what a cadre is by adding a wikilink. checkY Thomas Meng (talk) 03:37, 16 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • "enemy agents would also have to implicate others" Clarify: As in they must name others in order to finish their ordeal, or they were just pressured to do so?
It's unclear from what the source (Chang's review) says:

Many confessed to whatever their inquisitors demanded and falsely implicated others

. From the case studies in Gao's book, it seems that implicating others was a must-do in order to finish one's own ordeal. But should I just leave the sentence as is since it's best to not use primary sources? Thomas Meng (talk) 03:37, 16 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Some figures provided by Gao include 73 percent of Suide Normal School" 73 percent were what?
73 percent of the school's staff and students. Changes made. checkY Thomas Meng (talk) 03:37, 16 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • "emergency rescue campaign" Emergency rescue of what?

Thomas Meng (talk) 03:37, 16 October 2023 (UTC) Emergency recue of those who have lost their political footing, according to Kang Sheng (in Gao's book). Added footnote to explain this.checkY Thomas Meng (talk) 03:37, 16 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • "Reprinted twenty-two times" As of when?
As of 2018. Added info checkY. Thomas Meng (talk) 03:37, 16 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Gao's book has been regarded by many scholars as a profoundly influential work in the study of the CCP's history" Same issue as above with the claim being wider than the sources. Instead say that Gao's book profoundly influenced CCP historiography in X ways and cite the sources that say so, ideally with some quotes. Then the Reception claim will have a satisfactory citation without questioning whether it's overblown. Chang alone does not appear to be supporting the claim about CCP historiography overall, which is why you want multiple citations.
Fixed issue by rewording the same way as the lede and citing the lede's three sources. checkY Thomas Meng (talk) 03:37, 16 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Many scholars, including official CCP historians, criticize Gao's narrow focus" Same as above. Citation needed for this claim. Best to reframe as X scholars criticized Gao's narrative of Y.
Fixed issue by following the format "X scholars criticized Gao's narrative of Y". checkY Thomas Meng (talk) 03:37, 16 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Esherick is cited in Gao?
Yes, Esherick wrote the preface for the English translation. Thomas Meng (talk) 03:37, 16 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Not required but noteworthy:
    • I generally suggest the {{sfn}} format over adding |p= to {{r}}, as the former is much easier to parse. Then the short refs link to longer footnotes, e.g., The May Pamphlet
    • Citations aren't required in the lede, only where claims are likely to be challenged

czar 12:47, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Great, thank you for your helpful tips! Thomas Meng (talk) 03:37, 16 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hi @Thomas Meng, checking back for your response czar 15:49, 15 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Thomas Meng, I'll leave this review open for another week unless I hear otherwise. Let me know if you'd rather return to the review at another time. czar 01:42, 29 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Czar: My apologies for the delay. It's been extremely busy for me recently, and I've not had time to check Wikipedia, but I'll try my best to fix everything in the next week in order to finish this nomination—something to which we both devoted a lot of time. Kind regards, Thomas Meng (talk) 02:31, 16 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Czar: I just spent some time to address the issues. Some parts of the article are difficult to clarify due to the nature of the sources, as explained in my individual replies to the bullet points, but most problems are fixed now. I've also removed the photos per your comments on the licensing problem. Thanks, Thomas Meng (talk) 03:47, 16 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Recent additions look great! I'll take one last look in the morning, but looks like this will pass. Nicely done! czar 04:00, 10 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for pointing this out. I'm sorry for the mistake. I inserted this quote from p.360 of Gao's book instead for the citation. Do you think this quote would qualify?

Wang’s crimes were steadily upgraded until by June 1942 he was wearing three caps: anti-Party element (soon promoted to “ringleader of an anti-Party clique”), Trotskyite bandit, and KMT spy.

. Thomas Meng (talk) 20:17, 10 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm also still a little lost on "emergency rescue campaigns". Usually "emergency rescue" is a type of medical/disaster evacuation. Is that what it was here, or is there some other interpretation to explain in the text? I.e., calling it an "emergency Rescue Campaign" would indicate that it means something else as a proper noun. But I couldn't tell from this book article or the Ya'an article itself. czar 14:24, 10 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, it's confusing wording here. I think this quote from p.900 of Chang's review explains well, which I've added to the footnotes:

The most violent—and also the hitherto poorly understood—stage of the Rectifica- tion was the “emergency rescue” campaign, which was halted only when Georgi Dimitrov, the former Comintern leader, intervened in December 1943. To be “rescued,” all “problematic individuals” had to reveal everything and show repentance to the Party. In the end, the New Man was born—an individualist or petit bourgeois element (“half- hearted”) had been transformed into a proletarian revolutionary soldier (“whole- hearted”) and “the Party’s (i.e., Mao’s) docile instruments” (pp. 353, 467).

We could also see glimpses of the meaning behind the emergency rescue from Tony Saich's review:

Gao reveals how the curriculum vitae of Zhang Keqin was used by Kang Sheng and others to “expose” him as a spy who had infiltrated Yan’an [...] Following three days of round-the-clock interrogation, he complied with whatever accusa- tions his interrogators made. In addition to confessing, he named other “secret agents” and thanked the Party for saving him and allowing him to make a fresh start. This procedure was to become a model in subsequent campaigns. (emphasis added)

Hope that the new footnote makes it clearer now. Thank you. Thomas Meng (talk) 21:08, 10 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Excellent—thank you. One last note for the future: to be careful of close paraphrasing, such as copying sentences like "a quota of enemies were demanded from each work unit" or "15,000 'secret agents' were uncovered in Yan’an, a small city with 7,000 local residents and some 30,000 CCP cadres in the early 1940s" direct from the source, or only changing a word or two but keeping the same essential structure. To avoid plagiarism and copyright violations, the text should be put entirely in your own words. While I've corrected a few examples of this, most of the other close examples I've screened are sufficiently different from the source. But worth minding for the future. czar 22:28, 10 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Will definitely keep this in mind. Thank you! Thomas Meng (talk) 22:32, 10 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
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