asians art museum here. thanks for mentioning our project, and for your substantial contributions to the dialogue.

did you hear the latest: we had our artwork censored by the de Young Museum, and it would seem that the Asian Art Museum had no small part in the matter. Right before a juried art show that we had been invited to was about to open at the de Young, their bigwigs came down, Asian Art Museum counterparts on the phone, and demanded that a big part of our installation be removed. The banned content included your comments/our dialogue.

more info here:
http://asiansart.wordpress.com/2009/11/23/censored-by-de-young-museum/

Thank you very much for reading, and for your comment.

Turnbull does provide a bibliography at the end of the book, and he does talk about his sources within the text, writing things like “According to the Ehon Ryûkyû Gunki…”

What he does not do is cite – in footnotes or endnotes – individual facts or statements.

It’s extremely sloppy scholarship, but in the end, assuming his writing can be taken as reliably accurate, it is by far the most thorough, detailed work out there in English on these topics. This book “The Samurai Capture a King” is the only one to provide the dates of individual stages of the invasion, and to describe the individual stages in any detail – what he describes in 60 pages most scholars cover in one paragraph. So, it is valuable in that respect, and a most interesting read (if you’re interested in the topic to begin with). Just sloppy scholarship. Very sloppy.

I haven’t read any of Turnbull’s books, and from all I’ve heard I don’t see much reason to start.

To me, the most disturbing of your notes was #2, that there were no footnotes or references. (How is this possible). Is he saying that he did all the research, legwork, interviews, and fact finding on his own? Did he make it up? How would we know the difference? Sounds like reading one of James Clavell’s novels!

If nothing else it cheats someone out of recognition for there contribution to his work. Otherwise, he must have written his book in a vacuum…. To not have references in a something ‘claiming’ to be a historical account is ludicrous.

Great review.

Matt

I am, indeed, “on strike” as it were… when I feel I can check up on the forum – and return to posting – without being stressed about what responses might be there waiting for me, I’ll come back. In the past I’ve gone for long stretches when I’ve gone on strike from Wikipedia for the same reasons – the same stressful feeling in my stomach.

The forums are meant to be a recreation; and when they become stressful, they no longer serve that purpose in my day.

I love posting on there, and being involved, and to be honest it actually takes some willpower to not check the new messages and such. I don’t know long I’ll last, haha. Maybe I’ll go back in just a week or so.

Are you going to continue posting on the forum or are you really on strike? It would be a shame if you stopped contributing.

I could be completely mistaken, but I’ve concocted in my mind an image of someone who writes for the popular (general) market but still thinks of himself as too important, too ivory tower, to bother accounting for his mistakes or flaws to those mere (non-academic laymen) mortals.