Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The American Revolution, a global war

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. postdlf (talk) 02:45, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The American Revolution, a global war[edit]

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

I found no significant coverage for this book. The author has no article which doesn't automatically point to him being non-notable, but it does make it a likely possibility. Fails WP:BK. SL93 (talk) 23:08, 21 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 03:18, 22 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 03:18, 22 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Less than 100 Google Book hits, and as far as I can see from the snippets, only one source actually mentions it in passing as a work, rather than simply citing it in footnote or bibliography, and that simply to say that the position it presents is the position of most European works on the subject, so no claim to being influential by presenting a novel way of looking at the conflict can be made. Google scholar only has 7 hits, all citations. None in Google News or NY Times. None of the authors have a Wikipedia page (yes, there are 3, not 1) although the first author is referred to as a "noted military historian" on the page for his son). It is an orphan, and nobody except the page creator has made a single substantive edit since it was created a year and a half ago, when it was immediately PRODded only to have the creator remove the PROD. While it meets the threshold standards, it fails all of the specific criteria of WP:BK. Agricolae (talk) 04:43, 22 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: I'm leaning towards delete, but I am finding some hits out there that are actually useful. I found a review from Kirkus from back when they were considered to be far more of a respectable source and I did find a review from an Oxford journal. I'll need more than that of course, but part of the problem here is that I think it did get more coverage but much of it probably never made it to the internet. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 14:46, 22 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm... I see where two people from the Journal of American History gave separate reviews for the book. I'll add those to the article. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 14:48, 22 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This pdf from the "Center for the Study of War and Society, Department of History, University of Tennessee" (parentheses b/c I directly copied it) recommends it as far as books about the AR goes in a global perspective. Not exactly something I'd slap down on the counter as an "AH HA!" type of source, but it does infer that it's relatively well thought of as a book. The other thing I'm finding is where it's listed in the bibliography section of several history books. Other than the time period issues, I'm also running into the issue with the punctuation since the way the article is currently titled isn't exactly how it comes up in sources. Of course I recommend searching with "American Revolution" and "Global War" with one of the author's names, though. I got more hits that way. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 14:54, 22 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, L Faraone 00:41, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - Delete, the article's subject seems to have vague to mild coverage, and so far the links listed in here does not seem to suffice both GNG and also fails its specific criteria: WP:NBOOK. Eduemoni ^↑talk↓ 14:53, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Multiple reviews meet WP's normal practice. "I don't like it" that WP editors write articles about non-fiction books when they should be writing about their topics and using the books as references. And/or writing about their notable authors. However there is not a policy about that, and I don't think there should be. Kitfoxxe (talk) 23:06, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep -- With two reviews in high level academic periodicals, I would regardf this as an important book, unless the reviews (which I have not read) are rubbishing it completely, for example as riddled with errors. Peterkingiron (talk) 16:21, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

If it was riddled with errors it would be more notable. :-) -Kitfoxxe (talk) 20:15, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Stout (one of the academic reviewers) said "Although it is marred by typographical errors which the most rudimentary proofreading should have caught, its style and brevity make for good reading" if that's what you mean. Chris Troutman (talk) 00:29, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Mark Arsten (talk) 19:55, 6 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per above discussion identifying substantial coverage in academic sources. No objection to merging with author's article if such eexists. Candleabracadabra (talk)
Comment - it would be even better if someone used the book as a source to expand American Revolutionary War#An international war, 1778–1783 or create a new article focusing on that topic. The book itself doesn't seem very notable qua book. Few citations on Google Scholar. groupuscule (talk) 04:31, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Technically speaking, the listed academic reviews allow this article to pass the notability bar. I am very disappointed to see that not much has been written about the book's author (R. E. Dupuy), despite how notable he was. True, this article is ugly and needs to be re-written. The subject is a rare book (WorldCat only lists one copy in a library in Göttingen) and the reviews admit this book is more general interest than specific historical study. I am an inclusionist, so I'd rather see this article improved than deleted. Chris Troutman (talk) 00:29, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.