Talk:The Mexican Dream, or, The Interrupted Thought of Amerindian Civilizations

Removed 'summary' section

I've removed the 'summary' section, which apparently is an english translation of the publisher's dustjacket blurb from the French edition. It said:

During the month of March 1517, the ambassadors of Moctezuma , Lord of Mexico-Tenochtitlan were taken on board the ship of Hernán Cortés and their meeting initiated one of the most terrible adventures the world had ever known;an adventure which ended only when the Indian civilization in Mexico became extinct.An extinct civilization meant that the ideas of this Indian civilization were gone and that their religion was gone and that their arts were gone as well as what these people knew including their legal system.

with the reference given also providing quote of the dustjacket text in the original French

"Au cours du mois de mars 1517, les ambassadeurs de Moctezuma, seigneur de Mexico-Tenochtitlan, accueillent le navire de Hernán Cortés et cette rencontre initie une des plus terribles aventures du monde, qui s'achève par l'abolition de la civilisation indienne du Mexique, de sa pensée, de sa foi, de son art, de son savoir, de ses lois"

Firstly, I don't think it's useful to simply reproduce in articles the publisher's description of a book; these are typically written by publisher's marketing folks with eye to promotion, not necessarily veracity.

Secondly, it contains some evident errors of fact:

• Cortes did not even set sail from Cuba until Febuary of 1519, and so could not have met Moctezuma's ambassadors in March 1517. That encounter was after the July 1519 landing at Veracruz; it would appear that the book's blurb writer is rather confused. The 1517 encounter described in the opening lines of the book itself is Bernal Diaz's report of seeing a Maya township in Yucatan, when he was a solider-participant of Cordoba's expedition. It then goes on to mention Diaz's description of another encounter in March of 1518, this time on the other side of the peninsula when Diaz was on the Grijalva expedition. Neither of these two involved Cortes (or Moctezuma's ambassadors).
• Nor did Moctezuma's ambassadors ever set foot on one of Cortes' ships when he finally did show up, to the best of my knowledge; their meeting took place inland. But I think this is just a mistaken translation of accueillent le navire de Hernán Cortés which I think should be "[they] welcomed Cortes' ships", not "[they] were taken on board the ship".
• "the Indian civilization in Mexico became extinct" does not sound rightly put either; at the least it would be news to the 1.5 million present-day Nahua speakers whose traditions, while much altered, yet persist. A case of hyperbole perhaps, whether from the publisher or truly reflected in le Clezio's work I'm not sure.

Agree that a synopsis of the book's content and scope is useful, but I don't think that the dustjacket blurb helps.--cjllw ʘ TALK 08:23, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

References

Excerpt

I think Google provides a cool tool in that you can read an excerpt from a book you may want to read in full.

This was removed [[1]]

Google Book search not only lists the contents of this book but also provides a list of places mentioned in these essays.There is also an excerpt from the English version of the book (chapter one The Dream of the Conquerors online)

The reasoning:

Excerpt: rm section, no need to explain in article that the book can be found in googlebooks; that may change anyway or the view not be available depending on what ctry you access it from

— User:CJLL Wright Revision as of 09:48, December 11, 2008

Yes or no? Is that Wiki-policy?
Stadt (talk) 22:38, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

How about using this template instead?

Template:Google books

The Mexican Dream, Or, The Interrupted Thought of Amerindian Civilizations at Google Books

Stadt (talk) 22:52, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Have no problem with that template in the external links section (and have added it). But there's no real value I can see in mentioning google books access in the text of an encyclopaedia article— it's not unique or even uncommon (there are literally millions of titles these days). It'd be a bit like mentioning in the article that the book can be found in libraries, equally superfluous. Also, whether or not you can access/read a given book in googlebooks can depend on what country you are in; and if Google's new agreement in settlement of a US lawsuit gets implemented, the disparity between what someone in the US can see and what someone in another country can see is only going to get larger. --cjllw ʘ TALK 07:08, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Issues with some of the 'reviews' listed

I don't mean to be picky, and I appreciate the effort going in to fleshing out this article. But as mentioned above I don't think it's useful or even appropriate for an article to reproduce the publisher's backcover blurb from the book, in either its original language or in free translation.

The publisher-supplied description of a book (any book) cannot be considered unbiased for starters, and would certainly not be an independent third-party source as specified in WP:RS. Even the crappiest books ever published have exclusively positive things written about them in the publisher's cover description; this is product marketing not independent review or opinion.

In this case, the book's cover description is apparently not even that accurate when it comes to summarising the book's contents; I pointed out above one glaring error re the date of Cortes' landing.

Additionally the 'free translation' of the French edition's back cover text has some problems, per the initial comments here. The translation should say something like, when the ambassadors welcomed Cortes' ships, not the ambassadors were welcomed aboard Cortes' ship.

Likewise I would be cautious about using the pre-publication reviews that the publisher solicits and prints on the book's dustjacket. It would be far better to track down and use independent reviews, such as may have appeared in literary/scholarly journals, or commentary and notes referring to it in published books. These should exist somewhere. I do not think we could use reviews such as the one labelled here "Libraire à la Fnac Créteil". This is no more than a amazon-type reader's comment, made by a general member of the public on the website of the French department store chain, Fnac. In order for a review to be mentioned, both the reviewer and the review's place of publication ought to satisfy some standards of notability and offer some reason why the reviewer's opinion matters (eg published in a recognised journal by a cited literary critic, or expert in the book's subject, or even some recognisable public commentator). But here 'Sonia' is apparently just some random internet user commenting on a book she'd read, for all practical purposes she's anonymous. I can't see any reason to mention or even link to this one.--cjllw ʘ TALK 08:01, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

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