Talk:Late modern period

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End of the Late modern period?

I would like to suggest an end date for the "Late Modern Period."

one problem with this, of course, is that the term "late modern" itself intrinsically suggests that it is still ongoing, as it is the "modern" period in which we all live. However, I would suggest that the "late modern period" was actually a period with a beginning and an end, and was typified by the great conflicts of the 20th century, starting with the Franco-Prussian War as a precursuor, and then of course World War I, World War II, and the Cold War.

I would submit that the "Late Modern Period" was succeeded by the "Information Age" which in fact is now the current period in which we all live. Obviously, one next step would be to find some published sources for this premise. equally obviously, clearly this is not a question that needs to be resolved immediately. presumably, people, may happen upon this question a decade or two from now. at some point, this question of delineating the "late modern period" from whatever comes next will in fact become more relevant. I am simply introducing this question for some initial discussion, if possible. I may also post this question at WP:Pump. I welcome any comments. thanks. ---Sm8900 (talk) 🌍 14:50, 4 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The article on the Information Age defines its start year as 1947, the year the first functioning transistor was developed. By that logic, 2022 is the 75th year of the Information Age. Dimadick (talk) 21:38, 7 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

yay, I hope you actually read all of this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2604:2D80:6581:1400:F11D:838F:877C:B79 (talk) 11:44, 8 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

contemporary art

explain the late modern era 131.226.65.211 (talk) 22:22, 26 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Early modern period which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 02:31, 7 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Sources for the term

Can someone provide sources for the term "late modern period"? Peter Isotalo 20:00, 20 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

There's Brill, although I don't have access, and a definition here too. It seems to be quite poorly defined in general, like many periods, since the notion of transition from period to another is intrinsically vague and geography dependent. The start dates seems to vary from 1700-1800 and the end dates from 1900-1945. Iskandar323 (talk) 05:47, 21 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If you fulfill the user criteria, you have access to Brill through The Wikipedia Library.
The second reference is not a definition of the period but a description of a historical stage of Modern English. That's not relevant here.
I'm not used to seeing the term "late modern period". It's usually referred to as just "modern period", at least after the definition "early modern" become common.
I don't see exactly why this should be any more diffuse than any other common periodization scheme within the historical sciences. There can be disagreement about exakt dating, of course, but that goes for most periodizations that aren't defined by just one specific aspect, like royal dynasties, for example. Peter Isotalo 10:45, 29 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Fair warning

This article does not provide any sources to justify its existence despite being around for a very long time. There are no reliable sources justifying its existence as a separate topic rather than simply being described as part of the modern period. Peter Isotalo 08:40, 6 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Centralized discussion on modernity

I've raised the problems in this and the related articles modern era, early modern period and modernity in Wikiproject History. Thread can be found here: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject History#Modernity articles are a hot mess

I recommend a joint discussion for all these articles since they seem to suffer from very similar issues. Peter Isotalo 13:54, 26 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

please discuss any bulk removals here

as stated in this edit, please discuss any major removals or deletions here before doing them. here is my comment on the recent edit to undo: with respect, the burden is _not_ on me to explain why we should _not_ have bulk removals here with no discussion first on talk page. and also Wikipedia is _full_ of Passages that are technically "unsourced." if I wrote that "Shakespeare wrote Hamlet," then no one would ask me for a source. most world history topics similary do not have a source for every fact stated.. thanks.

Also, this discussion did occur in a limited form on WP:HIST talk page. the actual specific material to remove was not discussed there, however. let me say publicly that these removals were in fact in good faith, and this editor has certain specific reasons for these edits. i would encourage a constructive discussion here, to clarify and resolve this issue. --Sm8900 (talk) 20:40, 20 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Section break

Hi everyone. I seem to be late to this party, but I strongly agree with a lot of points made by Peter Isotalo, particularly with regards to the article Late modern period. It is an WP:UNSOURCED WP:OR WP:SYNTH WP:FAIL WP:COATRACK mess that probably fails WP:GNG. I've done some initial cleanups, but I'm afraid we should either:

  1. WP:TNT this at WP:AFD; or
  2. make it a disambiguation page; or
  3. strictly limit it to pure historiographical discussions on periodisation, in which every single source should be an WP:RS from a historiographer, and not just some author who happens to mention late modern in passing (WP:SIGCOV). All content discussing events or developments which happened in this purely theoretical periodisation should be thrown out (if practical recycled to some other article like 19th century or 20th century). I've already thrown out the "Significant events" section as complete and utter WP:UNSOURCED WP:OR, and am tempted to do the same with the rest of the article that does not say a word about late modern period, or about periodisation.

As noted by Peter and others, so far, none of the sources actually mentions late modern period, nor the subject of periodisation more generally. It just provides confirmation of specific, but otherwise trivial claims made in the article that event X happened in year Y (e.g. the Soviet Union disintegrating in 1991), but we know all that. What is missing here is any RS from a historiographer arguing why that should be demarcate the end of this so-called late modern period or not. Just saying one could take 1991 as some sort of turning point is plain WP:OR, and referring to a source that only confirms the USSR fell in 1991 is committing WP:SYNTH. (How synthful![Joke]).

Phil Bridger's suggestion to do a search on Google Scholar for RS is a good one. I've done two, with a variation in spelling, limited to sources from onwards per WP:AGEMATTERS:

The results are underwhelming. I'm a historian by training, and I've never really heard of the term late modern period before stumbling upon the article Late modern period today, but I expected at least some decent sources in Google Scholar. Instead, what I'm getting is a majority of articles, papers or book chapters that are mostly about linguistics of the English, Scottish and Irish English languages; it seems that the term late modern period is only common in that field, not in historiography. There are also sporadic mentions in other fields like literature, urban planning, art, religious studies, and military analysis, but again only in passing. Only a casual observer, a non-scholar, might look at a commonly-used term like early modern period, and therefore conclude there must also be a late modern period, regardless of whether that is a term actually commonly used in historiography (or any other field) as well. As Peter said: It might seem logical that "early modern" and "late modern" are used the same way as, say, Early Middle Ages and Late Middle Ages, but that's not the case. (...). What's sorely lacking is content on scholarly discussions about periodization as such. That's why we've wound up with our own definitions.

That said, I agree with SnowFire and Sm8900 that, unlike late modern period, the term early modern period is commonly used and accepted (including during my history studies). Early modern period easily passes WP:GNG. But for late modern period, that is not so clear-cut. As Thebiguglyalien suggested, it should have WP:NOPAGE if there aren't enough WP:RS, because then it is considered WP:OR: If no reliable independent sources can be found on a topic, Wikipedia should not have an article about it. All the results I got did not treat late modern period as a topic in its own right, but rather mentioned it in passing, which is not WP:SIGCOV. Even for pure English linguistics, which about half of the search results are about, late modern period seems not enough to merit its own article, as Late Modern English simply redirects to Modern English.

I think we should seriously discuss which of the three options I mentioned above (1 AFD, 2 DP, 3 strict limitation to historiography, throwing everything else out) is the best to follow here. I tagged most users in the previous discussions that I found to have valuable comments and insights (I hope you don't mind me doing so, but otherwise you might not notice my comment after this discussion has gone dormant for several months) to ask your thoughts on these options. The status quo is evidently untenable, but the discussions above and the state of the article itself also show we've got some unfinished business here. If nobody responds, I'll just WP:BOLDly gradually start throwing more irrelevant unsourced or synth stuff out according to option 3. We could always decide to go for 1 or 2 with what remains. Good day to everyone. NLeeuw (talk) 14:00, 14 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Per above comments, I am not too fussed on the whole matter of periodization. We already have the ability to subdivide topics however we like, hence articles like History of the United States (1815–1849). If people are very uncomfortable with "Late modern period" since that term doesn't come up very often in sources, then I'd say we should just move the article to Modern period, 1800–1945, or maybe even something like World history, 1800–1945. Then chop down the contents of Modern period to only include periodization and historiography topics, and leave all of the "actual" history to the child articles Early modern period, Modern period, 1800–1945, and Contemporary history (or even move that to Modern period, 1945–present if desired). SnowFire (talk) 21:34, 14 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not concerned about the other articles at the moment, just late modern period.
My question is whether we can justify a stand-alone article about the term late modern period under that name, fullstop. I do not see any reason to keep it as it is, or to recycle its contents by renaming. For its contents, we've already got far better articles, namely 19th century and 20th century, without arbitrary boundaries that we can't justify. For explaining what the term means, in terms of definitions given by actual scholars, I have not found a single proper source that deals with that question as a matter of historiographical periodisation. (By comparison, for early modern period, such sources exist, e.g. Justus Nipperdey, Inventing “Early Modern” Europe: Fashioning a New Historical Period in American Historiography 1880–1945. (July 2022). Journal of Early Modern History). NLeeuw (talk) 23:31, 14 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"Late modern" is not a thing among historians. In my experience, the most common term in the last few decades is to use "modern" to denote the period ca 1800 until today (where applicable). We have essentially zero sources supporting the notability of "late modern" as a standalone term or topic and we're better of simply redirecting it to modern era.
The notability and recognition of the early modern period isn't something I've questioned, only that editors are choosing to make their own interpretations of it by applying the Western calendar years of 1500-1800 globally. It makes no more sense than detailing the Classic Maya collapse or the Ghana Empire in the article about the Middle Ages.
Sub-dividing global history is fraught with difficulties and we should simply not do it the way you're suggesting here. It's actually problematic enough that we chop up US history by arbitrary dates purely for convenience. "We already do it" is not a strong reason to keep doing it. Peter Isotalo 11:18, 16 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I completely agree with Peter. A redirect to modern era is even better than any of the 3 options that I proposed (although it is close to a dp, option 2). NLeeuw (talk) 11:58, 16 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've WP:BOLDly removed all WP:UNSOURCED claims about events before 1800 and after 1945, since there is no agreement on whether these should be included in the concept of late modern period, and they had no sources which might have backed that up anyway. I've tagged most other unsourced statements as well, which may help raise our awareness just how much of this article is currently failing WP:V. Some sourced content might still be recycled into other articles, particularly those that have been identified as "Main articles". I've also restructured the article so that it now has just 4 main sections: Definition; Industrial revolutions; 19th century; and 20th century. The latter two already identified 19th century and 20th century as "Main articles" anyway, and it becomes ever clearer that these sections amount to little more than WP:REDUNDANTFORKs.
Even if periodisation of late modern period might merit a stand-alone article, we do not need to rehash all the content from other articles about which events might hypothecally be included in that concept. It's a bit like writing an article about a hypothetical Central Asian federation (which might possibly pass WP:GNG), and then listing all villages in Karakalpakstan that would exist in this federation if it were ever possibly maybe hypothetically theoretically potentially would-be in spe TBD deo volente inshallah to be established. Thus, this article would be using this purely hypothetical future federation as a WP:COATRACK to talk about the rather tangentially-related urban geography of a present-day region that the editor seems to be mostly interested in. Adding lots of (reliable) sources to support claims that villages A, B and C are indeed located in Karakalpakstan today, is
  • irrelevant for their inclusion into the article, especially if the sources do not even explicitly mention the article's topic (and pretty much none of the sources in late modern period mentions late modern period);
  • irrelevant for establishing the notability of the topic; and
  • irrelevant for determining whether it merits a stand-alone page or WP:NOPAGE. NLeeuw (talk) 12:41, 16 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

proposal

I suggest that you make a summary of as a follow-up at Talk:Late_modern_period#Sources_for_the_term. Fair warning has been given regarding the lack of sources justifying the source.
Article has been tagged for several months with no one stepping up to address the problems. Peter Isotalo 22:11, 19 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Peter Isotalo I don't understand. A summary of what? A lack of sources justifying what source? Do you mean justifying a stand-alone article? NLeeuw (talk) 06:14, 20 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've BOLDly removed more UNSOURCED stuff. As long as nobody objects, or tries to salvage this mess, I'll gradually go on with cleaning up. There might still be material worth recycling. NLeeuw (talk) 07:00, 20 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
i think any removals should be discussed and agreed upon in advance, on the talk page for the article itself. Sm8900 (talk) 16:22, 20 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
tagging @Peter Isotalo, @SnowFire, for their input. Sm8900 (talk) 16:24, 20 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We have been discussing it here (because discussion had been centralised since December 2023) for over a week. (I tagged all of you; you said nothing). But ok, why do you think we should keep this stuff? (For everyone's information, my rationale was WP:BOLD removal of more WP:UNSOURCED claims as their relevance to this article is tenuous at best (mostly using the barely used term "late modern period" as a WP:COATRACK), and WP:OVERLAPping and duplicative of 19th century and 20th century at worst (WP:REDUNDANTFORK). These issues are nothing new, they have been identified ever since December 2023, and I summarised them again 5 days ago). NLeeuw (talk) 17:06, 20 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You're definitely allowed to remove unsourced content, and anyone restoring it is responsible for adding sources before they do so. Also, reverting solely because there was no discussion is poor etiquette. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 18:25, 20 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. Removed again for now, until WP:RS are added to all content that was WP:UNSOURCED. NLeeuw (talk) 18:33, 20 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
quote from comment i posted on that talk page: as stated in this edit, please discuss any major removals or deletions here before doing them. here is my comment on the recent edit to undo: with respect, the burden is _not_ on me to explain why we should _not_ have bulk removals here with no discussion first on talk page. and also Wikipedia is _full_ of Passages that are technically "unsourced." if I wrote that "Shakespeare wrote Hamlet," then no one would ask me for a source. most world history topics similary do not have a source for every fact stated.. thanks.
Also, this discussion did occur in a limited form on WP:HIST talk page. the actual specific material to remove was not discussed there, however. let me say publicly that these removals were in fact in good faith, and this editor has certain specific reasons for these edits. i would encourage a constructive discussion here, to clarify and resolve this issue. --Sm8900 (talk) 20:41, 20 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
the burden is _not_ on me to explain why we should _not_ have bulk removals here. That's not what Thebiguglyalien or I said.
Wikipedia is _full_ of Passages that are technically "unsourced" WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS. NLeeuw (talk) 21:03, 20 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Nederlandse Leeuw i do appreciate your willingness to reply, and to discuss here. however, the proper place to discuss such a large deletion would be the talk page of the article itself. could you please initiate a discussion there, of the changes that you propose? thanks. Sm8900 (talk) 21:04, 20 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Nederlandse Leeuw and let me just add that it is quite possible that you may find consensus to your proposal. so I do not see any reason to decline to open this topic for discussion, on the talk page for this specific article. Sm8900 (talk) 21:07, 20 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
actually, the rule states that it is bad etiquette to revert solely because there was no discussion, if the revert does not include a substantive edit summary. thanks. Sm8900 (talk) 21:02, 20 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Copied from centralised discussion per request made by Sm8900. Pinging other possibly interested users from previous discussions @Peter Isotalo, Thebiguglyalien, and SnowFire:. Happy to hear your thoughts on the future of this article, given the discussions above. Good evening. NLeeuw (talk) 21:12, 20 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

To summarise: For the time being, I am not proposing for the article to be deleted, or turned into a redirect or DP. I'd like to clean it up, and see what material may be valuable to keep in some form or another.
  • Therefore, I propose to remove sentences and paragraphs that are WP:UNSOURCED. Almost all of these unsourced sentences do not mention the term or phrase late modern period anywhere, and they are not needed to explain or understand late modern period as a concept. The information therein can be found in other articles, where this content is relevant, properly sourced, and WP:DUE.
  • As for the sourced sentences, I propose that we look at them later. At the moment, they do little to nothing to explain the term or concept of late modern period here (WP:COATRACK). They also WP:OVERLAP with other articles, arguably making this article a WP:REDUNDANTFORK.
There are roughly two things we could do with them:
  • (A) use the sourced sentences as a basis to salvage this article into something useful that is actually about late modern period itself (as a historiographical term);
  • (B) recycle the sourced sentences into other articles where they are more relevant.
  • Other options, including making this article a redirect, making it a DP, or deleting it all, will also be on the table at this later stage.
I hope that makes things clear. Happy to answer any questions and consider suggestions you might have. Good evening. NLeeuw (talk) 21:26, 20 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

section break for comments

  • strongly disagree. in a broad overview entry such as this one, it is routine for many statements to be unsourced. you can view other overviews for furhter examples, such as articles like History of England, History of Ancient Greece, History of Scotland, History of France, History of Denmark, Early Modern Period, Classical Era, Medieval Era, History of publishing, Mathematics, Science, Calculus, Law, etc. by the way, i do sincerely appreciate your willingness to open topic for discussion here. --Sm8900 (talk) 21:55, 20 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Likewise, I appreciate the suggestion you have made to move the discussion here. The centralised discussion seemed no longer necessary as the focus was all in this article. It seems a good idea to relaunch the talks over here, and collapse the preliminaries above for reference.
    That said, just because many statements are unsourced elsewhere doesn't mean it's okay here (WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS).
    But let's start at the beginning: what do you think this article is about, and what it ought to be about? You do seem to agree this article has several issues, but not to be in a hurry to fix them. (2.5 years ago you wrote above: clearly this is not a question that needs to be resolved immediately. presumably, people, may happen upon this question a decade or two from now.) NLeeuw (talk) 22:02, 20 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    ok, fair enough. in my opinion, and as an inclusionist, i agree with people giving this article a broad scope, and then refining the structure and content steadily over time. and also, since the late modern period is the current period, for me it makes sense if the article's content shifts and changes somewhat,, over time, and if the scope and boundaries seem somewhat less specific than they might for articles about time periods that are further in the past. Sm8900 (talk) 22:06, 20 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Okay. What would you consider the difference between late modern period and modern period? NLeeuw (talk) 22:09, 20 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    ok the simplest answer is chonological; i would consider the late modern era to have begun in 1918, once the first world war ended, and technological progress resumed again from that point.
    on a conceptual level, i consider "late modern era" to refer to the overall period in which the current ingredients of the world in which we live today actually began. so therefore, the case could be made for either 1918 or 1945 as the beginning of the late modern era. either way, although it can be a focus for debate, the underlying concept would be the point at which the current prevailing political, technological, and cultural conditions of the current era, first had their beginnings. i hope that answer is somewhat helpful. Sm8900 (talk) 03:39, 21 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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