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Archive 1Archive 2

Ukraine

Andreas, LUISS did not shut down Orsini's observatory because of the comments; it cited a lack of sponsorship. The connection to pro-Russia commentary — attributed to anonymous sources — was made by certain sections of the media. Notably, Orsini claimed that he himself had suggested to shut down the observatory. This is a complex issue; please stop. TrangaBellam (talk) 08:03, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

Here is the diff of TrangaBellam's revert: [1]
Le Monde says: Embarrassed by the professor's outbursts, which were beginning to stain its reputation, LUISS University initially issued a statement on March 4, reiterating its "full solidarity with the Ukrainian people" and distance itself from Pr. Orsini. Yet, in an umpteenth blunder, on April 30, in which he went as far as to rewrite the origins of the Second World War ("When Hitler invaded Poland he didn't want World War II. It did not break out because Hitler at one point deliberately decided to attack England, France, Poland and Russia. Hitler had no intention of starting the world war. It happened that European countries created military alliances, each of which contained an article 5 of NATO, that is, an article that provided, in the event of an attack by a foreign country, that all the members of the coalition would go to war.") caused the university to shut down the observatory of terrorism directed by Mr. Orsini.
Do you have alternative sources then? At any rate, I think I will restore the quotes; they are more illustrative of Orsini's thought than the rather odd summaries we currently have of them. Regards, --Andreas JN466 08:29, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

RS/N

I have asked for wider input on the suitability of the book reviews discussed above: see Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Academic book reviews. Andreas JN466 16:32, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

You appear to have received the "wider input", given your latest round of edits? TrangaBellam (talk) 14:33, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

Hof summary

The summary of Tobias Hof's review, which is available to us through the Wikipedia Library at this link, is truly bizarre.

At the time of writing, we have: Tobia [sic] Hof, a historian of European terrorism, raised similar issues — lacking in "historical contextualisation", Orsini's study totally "neglected the political and social background as well as the historic tradition of violence in Italy", giving way to inane overgeneralizations.

There is no mention of "inane overgeneralizations" in Hof's review. The closest to that is Orsini wants us to believe that the physical annihilation of the ‘enemy’ was the final goal of the Red Brigades from the very beginning. However, recent studies on terrorism have convincingly demonstrated the importance of the communication process between terrorists, the public, and the state in this regard. Furthermore, Orsini neglects the political and social background as well as the historic tradition of violence in Italy. Thus his argument runs the danger of generalising and oversimplifying the very complex phenomenon of the radicalisation of terrorist groups.

And Hof also says, for example: Orsini offers a stimulating insight into the thinking of the Red Brigades, their ideology, and revolutionary roots. This is particularly significant since the ideology and mentality of this terrorist group has so far not been researched in depth. Therefore Orsini's original Italian version was mostly well received and was awarded the prestigious Acqui prize in 2010. A closer look at his work from a historical point of view, however, reveals some problems.

Hof's conclusion at the end of the review reads as follows: Orsini's book is not convincing in every aspect, especially when it comes to historical contextualisation and his sometimes apodictic arguments and conclusions. However, he presents a very interesting study which invites further debate. Without doubt it will have its place among the essential literature on Italian left-wing terrorism.

Now, do editors feel that the current summary matches the flavour of the original? Andreas JN466 16:49, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

Andreas, how many paragraphs does the reviewer devote to criticism? How many to praise?
You appear to be unfamiliar with the (unofficial) etiquettes that govern writing book-reviews for academic publications; even the most damning of reviewers say a line or two about the couple of positives in a sea of negatives. TrangaBellam (talk) 17:06, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
The review contains exactly three paragraphs. What I quoted above, Orsini's book is not convincing in every aspect, especially when it comes to historical contextualisation and his sometimes apodictic arguments and conclusions. However, he presents a very interesting study which invites further debate. Without doubt it will have its place among the essential literature on Italian left-wing terrorism., is the entire third paragraph summarising the foregoing two, of which the first is descriptive, and the second contains both praise and a critique.
I have read "most damning" reviews; this is not one of them – although the current summary of it in the article is apt to make the reader believe it is. "Inane", whoever wrote that, is completely uncalled for. Andreas JN466 08:38, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
Ah, I meant lines. Let's see:
  • The entire first paragraph is, as you say, descriptive: it provides a concise summary of Orsini's arguments.
  • The second paragraph starts with a line of praise; the next line is again descriptive, as is the one after, which describes the critical acclaim in Italy, duly covered in our article. Then, the next ten lines point out multiple flaws in his work, starting with "A closer look at his work from a historical point of view, however, reveals some problems [..]"
  • The third paragraph has three lines. The first notes the unconvincing nature of the book esp. "when it comes to historical contextualisation." The next two lines kinda mellow it by characterizing it as an "interesting study".
My summarization was absolutely appropriate. A slightly emended version, being: Tobias Hof, a historian of European terrorism, raised similar issues — though offering a "stimulating insight" into the thoughtschool of the Red Brigades, it lacked in "historical contextualisation" and "neglected the political and social background as well as the historic tradition of violence in Italy", giving way to overgeneralizations concerning radicalization.
I am also interested in what qualifies as a damning review for you — this? TrangaBellam (talk) 12:32, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
I think there is a bit of a theme here. The positive reviews (which you have just deleted ...) focus on understanding and explaining the Red Brigades' thinking in general human terms (as acknowledged by Hof in what you post, though "thoughtschool" is perhaps not the best word; "thinking" would be better), and they see merit in Orsini's analysis. Other scholars would like to see the analysis more tied to the Red Brigades specific historical environment, and they are the ones taking a more negative view. Regards, Andreas JN466 14:40, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
Interesting but irrelevant. I deleted the two (three - ?) reviews which are currently under evaluation at RSN; if you find other positive reviews, please add them. TrangaBellam (talk) 14:46, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

Concerning contributions

I thought you should know TrangaBellam that Luix710 is the editor (or one of?) on Italian Wikipedia who was in conflict with Gitz6666 regarding the negative biasing of the Orsini article over there. Which rather explains a lot of their editing here thus far. I just discovered this fact and how the article over there included a number of both unreliable sources criticizing Orsini including blog posts, but also things as petty as how he had poor grades in school. SilverserenC 18:42, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, this explains it. I had reverted their edits and left a note on their t/p. TrangaBellam (talk) 18:48, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
Also, if Luix710 is too negative, you are too positive. The summarization of A.C. Bull was ridiculuos. TrangaBellam (talk) 19:21, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
@Silver seren, and @TrangaBellam i'd like to thank you for the help you gave me about the editing, i'm somewhat new here and i don't really know how enwiki works. however i need to specify that the italian article had no political bias whatsoever, Gitz6666 was the only one (alongside another user who was "stalking" the discussion page for over a year) who claimed it had one. the consensus was clear, the page was widely considered to be perfectly neutral, and as you surely know, it has been hided due to a menace of legal actions by Orsini. Luix710 (talk) 19:21, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
Did it use blog posts as sources? Did it include his school grades for any reason whatsoever? SilverserenC 19:23, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
I consulted the it.wiki entry via Wayback and I am unable to assume 100% good faith - even, the choice of the photo is disparaging, atleast to me. But my sympathies do not lie with Orsini either. TrangaBellam (talk) 19:33, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
@Luix710 "the italian article had no political bias whatsoever" and "Gitz6666 was the only one"
Are you kidding or what !!??
More than 10 other users complained many times about the neutrality and the lack of positive reviews.
Here the not exhaustive list:
--151.73.171.167 (msg) 04:38, 13 giu 2022 (CEST)
--213.243.249.19 (msg) 22:31, 25 mag 2023
--Danieleb2000 (msg) 19:09, 20 mag 2023 (CEST)
--Fra00 18:05, 13 giu 2022 (CEST)
--Gitz (msg) 12:10, 19 mag 2023
--Il Tuchino 08:18, 9 gen 2023 (CET)
--Malencio  10:14, 21 dic 2022 (CET)
--Mhorg (msg) 14:43, 19 mag 2023 (CEST)
--pequod76talk 09:11, 17 mag 2023 (CEST)
--Orangesong, 02 jun2023 (CEST)
--Oakwood, 06 jun2023 (CEST)

RedStormed (talk) 22:01, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

Another revert by TrangaBellam ...

[2] --Andreas JN466 14:35, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

There seems to be a lot of WP:OWN going on in their edits despite multiple editors disagreeing with their exclusion of sources and inaccurate summary of reviews. SilverserenC 17:28, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
Oh, and I see that all of my summaries for reviews have been rewritten to ensure they're all subtly negative, even for positive reviews. Or in some way denigrating the reviewer to make them seem wrong. For example, Herf now reads "is more critical of these imperatives of historicism" to make it seem like Herf is a bad historian who doesn't support proper history research. Also, the minor aside of not needing the DRIA model because the rest of the book is so good has now been rewritten so that it seems like Herf dislikes the model more specifically with a much longer sentence when the review isn't like that at all. This all seems like purposeful slanting of the references wherever possible, doesn't it, Jayen466? SilverserenC 18:16, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
As the person who rewrote your summary, I can assure you there was no intent to make Herf look bad, none whatsoever; you may want to read those two lines again, as they respond to the prior "historicist" criticism. I rewrote it because there was no detail about *why* Herf didn't think the methodological apparatus was necessary (you had just given the names of the 4-part methodological approach Herf didn't think was useful without any explanation), nor was there mention of the main thrust of the article (which deals with the surprisingly unmentioned subtitle of the English translation: "The *Religious* Mind-Set Of Modern Terrorists"). -- SashiRolls 🌿 · 🍥 18:32, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
I don't think it is clear enough to represent Herf's review on his thoughts of the importance of the book and its main point. For example, the gnostic fanaticism part you quoted is from this line: "The gnostic fanaticism that Orsini examines has remained with us in other forms, making his book of interest not only for historians but also for scholars and policy analysts grappling with contemporary ideological justifications for terrorism". Do you think relating that to Orsini's conceptual model is the main point being expressed here or how important the reviewer considers Orsini's book for looking into the ideologies and mentality of terrorism? SilverserenC 18:42, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
When you read the article again, you may want to pay attention to the "avenging angel", the woman writing home of the "monster" (cf. Gnostic demiurge), Gramsci's comments on the "magical-sacral power of communism", the citation concerning "eschatological ideology" and the multiple mentions of religions as opposed to scientism... -- SashiRolls 🌿 · 🍥 18:51, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
So you do think an entire sentence on your interpretation of those quoted parts is a good summary of the review's thoughts on the book? Especially considering nothing of the conceptual model is brought up in the final two paragraphs out of the total seven (and the model is only discussed in one). Meanwhile, in the paragraph that discusses the model, it concludes:
The value of his work does not lie in this conceptual model. Rather it consists of his understanding of the causal importance of the beliefs and passions of the Red Brigades, his willingness to scrutinize the key documents of their beliefs, and his ability to demonstrate the connection between fanatical ideology and murderous practice.
Thus, again I ask, you think the current summary of the review in the article is an accurate representation? SilverserenC 19:10, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
Yes it definitely is considerably better than what was there before. Let's be clear that the conceptual model is the DRIA that you had dutifully spelled out earlier. Perhaps because Orsini is a political scientist and feels a need to convince fellow political scientists that he can offer a "model" to explain this madness, he suggests a pattern of DRIA [...]. He need not have bothered. The value of this review is that it takes a look at the work without historicist blinders and is willing to engage with the Manichean / Gnostic element of the work, deemed sufficiently important by its translator to be added to the subtitle where it was not in the subtitle in Italian. My two cents. I'm now out of change... I've given you all I have. :) -- SashiRolls 🌿 · 🍥 19:24, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
@Silver seren It certainly matches my impression – you've said exactly what I think.
Though I think in Herf's case it is more of an artifact. The way Sashi had it after his string of edits made sense. Of course TrangaBellam couldn't let it stand, and when Sashi then reinserted the sentence about the model it didn't jell any more. (I'd give you the diffs but I'm on mobile ...)
What you quote above about the value of the book would be worthwhile summarising in the article. Andreas JN466 23:38, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
Ah yes, I'd forgotten about that jumble up. :) I've restored it to its position in the text and have modified based on the above discussion. If you feel it doesn't respond to your concerns SilverSeren feel free to modify it. I've also toned down a fair bit of the rhetoric (e.g. "fallacious tract") in the paragraph. -- SashiRolls 🌿 · 🍥 01:29, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
    • Oh, and I see that all of my summaries for reviews have been rewritten to ensure they're all subtly negative, even for positive reviews. Or in some way denigrating the reviewer to make them seem wrong. - Please provide diffs where I engage in such edits or retract. Thanks, TrangaBellam (talk) 19:26, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
For the record, Tranga, I don't agree with your revert of Jayen466 for which the diff starts this section. Paul Smith's largely expository review may not be polemical but it does a better job explaining what is in each chapter than any other review. Both Freedman and Schmid are big names in the larger field and the half-sentences that you removed were not harming anything. I also think the less polemical tone is welcome... -- SashiRolls 🌿 · 🍥 20:31, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
Freedman might be a big name but not in the domain of the book.
Schmid, I have nothing against but if you have him, I will quote about half-a-dozen other scholars who trashed the book in a couple of lines or a footnote in their own publications, while not drafting detailed reviews. I am of the belief that such an attitude does our readers a diservice; this page is not meant as an indiscrimiate collection of every published opinion on the book. TrangaBellam (talk) 20:36, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
You are contradicting yourself by threatening that you will do exactly what you say will be a disservice to our readers.
Schmid's opinion – which you have deleted once already from the article – is worth mentioning because he is very highly regarded in this field. I very much doubt you will find a dozen scholars trashing the book who haven't been quoted in the article yet and are as prominent as Schmid. Andreas JN466 23:55, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
As for Freedman, I don't think your opinion on his qualifications are in any way relevant. He is an RS; you are not. Andreas JN466 00:00, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

Biased "Views" paragraph

Similar to the section on the reception of 'Anatomy of the Red Brigades', the 'Views' paragraph is heavily biased. Essential viewpoints of Orsini, such as his criticism against NATO's expansionism and the European Union's diplomatic failure as co-factors of the war in Ukraine, which he has repeatedly expressed, are neglected. Instead, some sentences have been extracted out of context in a biased way and listed with the purpose of denigrating him ("he rewrote the history of WWII"). Essential viewpoints shall be pinpointed and summarized, the sentences should be removed and put in a Wikiquote page instead. RedStormed (talk) 05:49, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

I really don't think Luix710 should be editing this article, when they're the one that got into the conflict with Gitz6666 on the Italian Wikipedia Orsini article. It belies some sort of COI. Particularly when their edits here are very blatantly trying to be negative just as with the other version of the article over there. An article that was very negatively biased with the use of blogs as sources and extraneous negative information, such as Orsini's school grades. SilverserenC 05:55, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
@Silver seren I agree. In particular, the reviews and views paragraphs should be a "compact summary" of the essential viewpoints, long quotations belong to wikiquote.
Please check my proposal for the reviews below ("Summary of the reviews"). RedStormed (talk) 06:34, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
I agree. This edit by Luix710 is one of the worst WP:BLP violations I have ever seen on Wikipedia. Sorry, Luix710, I really think it would be better if you restrict yourself to talk page edits. Andreas JN466 06:51, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
+1/ Luix710's edits are a net negative. TrangaBellam (talk) 06:53, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
I also doubt the DUEness of the mosque episode. What do others feel? TrangaBellam (talk) 07:02, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
@TrangaBellam well I did not want to remove some other contexts without a discussion, but actually yes, IMHO there is no DUEness and should be removed. RedStormed (talk) 07:11, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
WHAT? biased editing? literally what i did was just briefing the paragraph about his historical revisionism regarding ww2 and nazi germany intentions. i don't get what you're talking about. later on i corrected the first edit on mosques stating exactly what the article says, you can check it by yourselves. Luix710 (talk) 07:11, 25 June 2023 (UTC) P.S if i'm in some sort of COI (which i'm not), Gitz6666 had a gigantic one, he lamented a bias but the article was perfectly fine, as many other users agreed (among the others) like Kirk39, Quinlan83, Argeste, Bramfab; the link on archive.is goes back to 2022 (when some mistakes might be had made) but as june 2023 the page wans't biased

Another worthwhile review of Anatomy of the Red Brigades

  • Hall, John R. (2013). "Review of Anatomy of the Red Brigades: The Religious Mind-Set of Modern Terrorists". Contemporary Sociology. 42 (2): 265–266. ISSN 0094-3061.
  • Wikipedia Library link: [3]
  • Author: [4] --Andreas JN466 07:38, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

L’Eretico della sinistra: Bruno Rizzi élitista democratico

This book by Alessandro Orsini endeavours to show us a Bruno Rizzi palatable to contemporary taste, expurgating everything of which neoliberals are not fond. Not only does Orsini fail to demonstrate that Rizzi was a great political thinker, still less an original thinker. He also misrepresents the ideas stated by Rizzi in his most expressive work, La Bureaucratisation du Monde, and he does not help to elucidate the historical environment in which these ideas emerged nor the path they took.

In light of the concluding paragraph, which is entirely damning, our summarization appears to be quite positive! TrangaBellam (talk) 06:59, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

Andreas, what do you think? TrangaBellam (talk) 07:01, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
I concur. Andreas JN466 10:56, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

Is Bosworth an acceptable source?

It's been argued above that various authors who have not written about the exact matter in hand are not qualified to be quality reliable sources for this article.

So what qualifies R. J. B. Bosworth, a historian, to be able to comment on sociological studies? He isn't an expert on sociological ethnography and yet his slating of Sacrifice is given the pride of place. Dronkle (talk) 12:26, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

Neither of his cited THE "reviews" are much more than squibs and both are unabashedly polemical. They're clearly biased sources, but that doesn't make them unacceptable. (cf. WP:PARTISAN) -- SashiRolls 🌿 · 🍥 17:17, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

Another source which might help build material on what Orsini thinks

Simon Clark's Terror Vanquished is at https://csps.gmu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Terror-Vanquished.pdf Relevant quotes

  • Alessandro Orsini’s astute, if polemical Anatomia delle Brigate Rosse (Anatomy of the Red Brigades) ties their ideology back to traditional Marxist thought with some well chosen quotations from Gramsci and, less convincingly, to a broader Manichean tradition in Italian political culture.
  • Alessandro Orsini, in Anatomia delle Brigate Rosse, the most thorough analysis of the movement’s ideological underpinnings, posits a gnostic theory of terrorism in which the elect are chosen to purify a corrupt world through fire. He quotes Anna Laura Braghetti, one of the early leaders, who explained that “I imagined a world in which every wrong was righted, every inequality corrected, every injustice cured… This justified the means we would use.” 302 Mario Farrandi, another member, said: “In those years we never asked ourselves what we had to build, we just knew that we had to destroy what was.”303 In their manifesto written in 1982, Curcio and Franceschini stated that capitalism suffocates and kills all individuality and that people are phantoms who don’t see their own imprisonment and can only be liberated by an apocalyptic war led by the Red Brigades who alone see the truth.304 Fenzi believed that “I and the Red Brigades knew all, understood all. Our actions were just the extension of our ability to understand the direction of history.” 305 The result of this emphasis on purity and destruction were summarized once the campaign was over by Franceschini, who observed that: “if we had come to power, we would have made Pol Pot turn pale.”306 All the references for the whole paragraph are to Orsini's book so I read the whole as an exposition of Orsini's views.

This is to help with providing more information on Orsini rather than reactions to him. Dronkle (talk) 08:58, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

"Largely panned by the Western Academe"

Can we do a straw poll? I think that phrase is too negative. Reception of the English edition of Anatomy sure has been mixed, but there has also been prominent praise – Lawrence Freedman in Foreign Affairs picking it as one of the three best "International Relations Books" ("Military, Scientific, and Technological") published that year [5][6], Alex P. Schmid describing it as "excellent", positive reviews by Herf, Smith, Hall, etc. (Also, Italian Academe is part of "Western Academe".) Andreas JN466 14:50, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

I agree with Andreas that the quoted phrase is WP:UNDUE. One of the problems with this article is that it focusses too much on who does or does not like the various books and not enough on what he says. This article is about Orsini and not his books let alone the reviewers. The readers of the article should be able to finish it with a basic idea of Orsini's main theses about terrorism and any other topics he may have written extensively about. They do not need to know who likes or dislikes the books. potentially an article on the BR book might go into more depth about its reception, but here we need to primarily get over what Orsini thinks. Dronkle (talk) 15:10, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
The same thing occurred to me when I looked at the R. J. B. Bosworth article you linked in the previous section. I was struck by how little content there was about who agreed and disagreed with him, and how much more content there was about what he was actually saying. Andreas JN466 15:15, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
It's been pulled out (at least) twice now by (at least) two different people, but somehow it keeps growing back. I suspect the idea is to drive into the reader's head straightaway that the book isn't worthy of standard respectful language, but is on a par with a B-movie. FWIW, I also concur that Italy is in the West. -- SashiRolls 🌿 · 🍥 17:02, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
Re-worded. Andreas JN466 12:12, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

Balance

I see things moved fast while I slept. I had responded to Star Mississippi above but apparently failed to save it. So instead here are some more caffeinated thoughts.

I agree on mainspacing the article, and the section that has been added about his publications and their reception corresponds broadly to what I had been thinking of adding and had mentioned in my last edit summary. Thanks, TrangaBellam; I'm guessing you are better able to read Italian than I am.

However, as Andreas noted in the Signpost, the disparity in reviews of the Red Brigades book is not two-sided, there were several mixed reviews. The same goes for his later books. The Italian article is available at the Internet Archive; I used the version of 2 June for the facts of his early life and career, going back to the cited sources and adding a couple in corroboration. (Earlier versions likely contain at least one negative statement that was the subject of edit warring on it.wikipedia on BLP grounds.)

I haven't looked in detail at the article as it now is, but we must be extremely careful of due weight, and from my search for sources and those that were used on it.wikipedia and also those mentioned at the second AfD, it is apparent that Orsini has become a well-known commentator in Italy—his column in Il Fatto Quotidiano, but also a lot of TV appearances—and so there are just a ton of press articles about his stances, at all levels of high-browedness, and we need to distill that aspect of his career into a neutral statement or two. This article cannot become a précis of public debate in Italy over terrorism (in Italy or more broadly in Europe), NATO, or the invasion of Ukraine. It's a BLP about an academic who is both active in public debate and much discussed.

I would counsel that we be briefer than a quick glance suggests we are now being, with few quotes and instead, dry summary of a lot of specifics about what he's written and spoken about, and footnotes reflecting the range of newspapers as well as journals that have either critiqued his work or discussed his arguments and opinions. If we don't get into the weeds of why the THE reviewer didn't like the Red Brigades book, to take one example that was over-weighted in the it.wikipedia article, and instead summarize, we run less risk of in effect taking sides, which isn't our job as an encyclopaedia. And we don't need that level of detail to demonstrate his notability; the second AfD, in particular, in my view came to the wrong conclusion because it focussed on NPROF and missed seeing the strength of the case under GNG (plus I think an adequate NPROF case could have been made based on his publications). In any event, over the past year his notability has become obvious. So the article can be lean and mean providing it has the footnotes. Yngvadottir (talk) 23:15, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

@Yngvadottir I with the thrust of your comment. There are an awful lot of weeds here. Potentially some of the sections of the article need to be ploughed up with entirely new content planted there. The draft article that was on @Silver seren's page with the brief section about his family, a longer one about his career and a list of his books looked fine. It's the newer material that is problematic because it says a lot about people's reactions to Orsini and not a lot about him and his writings. Dronkle (talk) 15:39, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

@TrangaBellam and Silver seren: I'm quite concerned after checking the last edit to the article. This source is not only from Il Foglio Quotidiano, which should be used sparingly and carefully both because it has a marked political slant and because Orsini is one of their columnists, but it's in Italian, not English, and is by Giovanni Rodriquez, not John. Giving only a translated title is misleading to readers, and translating the writer's name is insulting and suggests machine translation. TrangaBellam, have you been using machine translation rather than reading the sources? If so, and if you can't read the Italian sources, I'm sorry, but it would be better to reverse your work and recreate the section. This is a BLP, and a touchy one. We have to get this as right as we can. Yngvadottir (talk) 06:41, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

WHAT? I did neither add the source nor use it for anything; on the contrary, I removed the one line which depended entirely on the source! It was SilverSeren who had added the source and used it to write a whole line. You have been here for long enough to know parsing diffs; so, please be more careful, assume good faith, and take your long-winded commentary with idiosyncratic edit-summaries elsewhere. TrangaBellam (talk) 07:04, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
Oh good, I see you removed it. I am sorry; you are correct, but I did not realise it was already in the article. Plus I see I'm confusing Il Foglio with Il Fatto Quotidiano. So I presume my first assumption was correct and that you can indeed read Italian, and I'll do as you wish and bow out. But could someone please unescape the categories, which I added when the article was a draft in user space? Yngvadottir (talk) 09:11, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
I do not have any command over Italian; my rustic French is of no advantage, either.
My edits to this article have centered around (1) expanding the reviews, which you propose gutting for rather incoherent reasons, and (2) highlighting that, pace Andreas, reviews by specialists have been uniformly scathing. I did add a couple of Italian sources in the section on Ukraine but I could have done w/o them, too. TrangaBellam (talk) 11:01, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
My own Italian comprehension is less good than my French, but I'm very concerned that this article should not be written based on machine translations or preferring English-language sources. I thank you for your work, which as I stated above is broadly along the lines I'd suggested in my last edit summary to the draft. But primarily for BLP reasons, I think it should be redone by someone with a good reading knowledge of Italian (to be clear, that should be someone whose Italian is better than mine). Yngvadottir (talk) 12:34, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
Thanks. I do not really feel that this is a tough BLP.
The guy is clearly an incompetent scholar but so are dime a dozen in academia; he was cared about by nobody significant — unless, you consider the academe — in the grander scheme of things before he became a media sensation during the Ukraine War, courtesy spouting Russian viewpoints. Now, this Russo-Ukrain business (about which I, admittedly, understand little except the polarizing nature) needs to be covered by some native speaker, indeed. TrangaBellam (talk) 14:15, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
Yngvadottir, I still feel uncomfortable about excluding journal reviews by academics with backgrounds of terrorism studies and Europe during the Cold War just because they aren't "subject experts" specifically on extremist Italian terrorist groups during the Cold War. See discussion above for details about that. SilverserenC 21:23, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
As mentioned at RS/N, Paul J. Smith actually contributed a chapter on the Red Brigades, the precise topic Orsini's book is about, to Armed groups: studies in national security, counterterrorism, and counterinsurgency, published by the U.S. government (U.S. Naval War College).
Even if this weren't the case, there's no good reason for Wikipedia to selectively exclude reviews published in reputable academic journals. Wikipedia is meant to mirror reliable sources' judgement. Andreas JN466 22:06, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
@Silver Seren and Jayen466: Other than confusing 2 newspapers, I haven't called for excluding any reviews in RS. Rather, I've called for not paraphrasing and quoting reviews, but instead summarising with footnotes to the reviews in question. The section is (or was) very long, and choosing which reviews to feature in our text is an evaluative judgement I don't think we ought to be making. All the more so since it appears that section was written based on English-language sources and machine translation of Italian sources. Both of these will produce an unbalanced article, and this is a BLP of someone who's written and spoken a lot and provoked a lot of strong responses, precisely the kind of article where balance is a massive concern. Yngvadottir (talk) 00:58, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
Oh, I wasn't accusing you of that at all, sorry for the confusion. I was informing you of my agreement with you and my uncomfortableness about the discussion sections above. SilverserenC 01:08, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

Reliability of a source

What do editors feel about this sarcastic profile? Thank you, TrangaBellam (talk) 22:00, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

What were you planning on using from it? SilverserenC 22:21, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
Tbh, nothing - just curious. TrangaBellam (talk) 07:14, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
Do you understand that this is not a forum for general discussions of the topic or curiosity satisfaction? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:46, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

Rolling Stone

"Bella vita e guerre altrui del professor Alessandro Orsini, gentiluomo". Rolling Stone Italia (in Italian). 2022-05-21. TrangaBellam (talk) 11:11, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

Do our restrictions on rolling stone and politics extend to the Italian version? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:48, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

NPOV: Biased cherry picking for the views and the receptions on Anatomy of the Red Brigades

The neutrality of this encyclopedia is no longer trustworthy, and this is a perfect example.
"The "Views" section extracts sentences out of context and omits the "big picture", namely Orsini's staunch pacifism and his criticism of NATO's eastward expansionism and the European Union's diplomatic failure, two crucial factors he believes are contributing causes that led to the conflict in Ukraine. On the other hand, phrases taken out of context are quoted to denigrate him as pro-Russian.
The reception of 'Anatomy of the Red Brigades' has been subjected to the same incredibly biased cherry-picking as in the Italian version, which is currently protected as a precaution against a possible legal dispute. All of the positive reviews have been intentionally ignored, likely with the purpose of delegitimizing a researcher whose only fault was to openly criticize NATO.
Some positive receptions incredibly been ignored:

  • Lawrence D. Freedman (the "dean of British strategic studies" [1]) defined the book "remarkable" ("Orsini's remarkable book gets as close to any to understanding this sort of thinking.") [2] and in the influencial magazine "Foreign Affairs" selected the book as one of the 3 best books of 2011 [3] in its field ("Military, Scientific, and Technological").
  • Axel P. Schmid [4], a famous and awarded scholar in terrorism studies, defined the book as "excellent" [5], selecting it among many possible others as an archetipical example to deny the stagnation of good studies on terrorism
  • Paul J. Smith [6], scholar in transnational security issues and the international politics, wrote on "Perspectives on Politics" [7]: "Alessandro Orsini has made an enormous scholarly contribution that explains why. In this way, Orsini's study is not only an explication of the Red Brigades, their background and modus operandi, but is also an examination into the timeless nature of terrorism itself."
  • Dante Notaristefano, President of the Italian Association of Victims of Terrorism, wrote [8]: "Even in a context of academic study, his talent is that of describing everything with great clarity, producing an analysis executed in a plain language which avoids any erudite intellectualism.... The book has at least two further merits. The first is that of showing the killing power of Red Brigade ideology based on the dehumanization of the Red Brigades' political enemies, a process which occurs within a psychological power, an emotional force field, called 'the revolutionary sect.’ The second is its timeliness. The book closes with a chapter devoted to the right-wing Black Brigades of the Seventies, but we are sure it can facilitate the understanding of terrorism as a cultural phenomenon even in its new modern forms, namely those that stretch their tragic and criminal reach into our daily lives."
  • Soma Chaudhuri, in the "Review of Anatomy of the Red Brigades" ("Mobilization", June 2012), wrote: "The book will be relevant to scholars not just interested in collective violence, but scholars who are interested in the dogmatization process of terrorists groups, of political ideology, and support for dictators in the contemporary world. This is a uniquely organized book, and it is my assessment that scholars in the future will be comparing it with Christopher Browning's monograph on Nazi holocaust, Ordinary Men."
  • Ryan Shaffer, in "Terrorism and Political Violence", wrote: Anatomy of the Red Brigades successfully fills a gap in the scholarship by looking at a religious mindset when examining a form of terrorism that is not intrinsically connected to religion." [8]
  • Jeffrey Herf [9], Professor of modern European at the University of Maryland, wrote [10]: "Alessandro Orsini's informative and valuable study of the fanaticism that inspired Italy's Red Brigades terrorist actions"
  • Joshua Sinai [11] selects the book among the Top 150 Books on Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism and defines the book "an insightful account" [12]
  • John Horgan, Director, International Center for the Study of Terrorism, Penn State University: "Anatomy of the Red Brigades is a disturbing journey into the suffocating, obsessive psychology of the Red Brigades mind-set. This book is captivating in its accounts, rich in its analysis, and profoundly important as an outstanding analysis of one of the bloodiest terrorist groups of the twentieth century." [13]
  • Bruce Hoffman, Director, Center for Peace & Security Studies, Georgetown University, author of Inside Terrorism : "Anatomy of the Red Brigades provides a uniquely insightful and comprehensive account of one of history's most fascinating terrorist groups. Alessandro Orsini has written an important and original work that sheds new light on understanding the modern terrorist mind-set in general and the motivations of the Red Brigades specifically. His work thus makes a significant contribution to the literature on terrorists and terrorism." [13]
  • Spencer DiScala, University of Massachusetts Boston : "What if the terrorism that shook the Western world from the late 1960s to the mid-1980s were unconnected to the economic, political, and social conditions? It is this possibility that Alessandro Orsini examines in this extraordinarily well-researched and well-documented book. Orsini has discovered that the terrorist mind-set always exists just below the surface, is difficult to cope with, is difficult to change, is irrational, and is likely to resurface at any time under conditions we cannot predict." [13]
  • Journal of Cold War Studies (reviewing the Italian edition): "Alessandro Orsini has presented us with a book of high scholarly distinction. Anatomy of the Red Brigades is a tour de force of intellectual history and a major attempt to explain both the Italian experience with terrorism and terrorism in general." [13]

Sources:
[1] https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Lawrence_Freedman
[2] https://www.jstor.org/stable/23041799
[3] https://www.foreignaffairs.com/anthologies/2011-12-26/best-international-relations-books-2011
[4] https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Alex_P._Schmid
[5] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09546553.2014.895651?journalCode=ftpv20
[6] https://usnwc.edu/Faculty-and-Departments/Directory/Paul-J-Smith
[7] https://www.jstor.org/stable/41479585
[8] https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9780801449864/anatomy-of-the-red-brigades/#bookTabs=1
[9] https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Jeffrey_Herf
[10] https://www.jstor.org/stable/26924128?read-now=1&seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
[11] https://www.captechu.edu/faculty-staff/joshua-sinai
[12] https://www.jstor.org/stable/26298567?seq=15 ("Perspectives on Terrorism", Vol. 6, No. 2, May 2012)
[13] https://www.booktopia.com.au/anatomy-of-the-red-brigades-alessandro-orsini/book/9780801449864.html

RedStormed (talk) 20:19, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

I have objected to the reliability of Smith and Freedman; it is being dicussed at RSN.
Schmid, I have nothing against but if you have him, I will quote about half-a-dozen other scholars who trashed the book in a couple of lines or a footnote in their own publications, while not drafting detailed reviews. I am of the belief that such an attitude does our readers a diservice; this page is not meant as an indiscrimiate collection of every published opinion on the book.
Why does Notaristefano's opinion matter? He appears to be a politician, who opened a relevant advocacy organization, but has no academic expertise.
Soma Chaudhuri's field-of-work does not have any remote connection with Orsini's.
Shaffer was not even a PhD student, at the time of writing the review; as of today, he appears to have left academia. When there are a dozen acclaimed scholars reviewing the work, we need not scrape the barrel.
Herf's review exists in the article. TrangaBellam (talk) 20:47, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
@TrangaBellam the reliability of Freedman? Are you serious? Just read its wikipedia page (https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Lawrence_Freedman#Honours_and_awards): "British academic, historian and author specialising in foreign policy, international relations and strategy. He has been described as the "dean of British strategic studies"
He even wrote an article on the subject "Terrorism as a Strategy": https://www.jstor.org/stable/44483200
As for Axel P. Schmid (source Wikipedia itself):
  • Is known for attempting to have given a tout court definition on terrorism itself
  • The Routledge Handbook of Terrorism Research (2011), edited by Schmid and including his revised consensus definition of terrorism, is a highly cited resource
  • Has authored more than 200 publications on terrorism
  • The first edition of his Political Terrorism (1984) won a national award for best book in political science
  • Schmid has been described as "one of the leading scholars of orthodox terrorism"
RedStormed (talk) 21:00, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
Orsini's book is not in the field of strategic studies; so, why you emphasis on Freedman being a distinguished scholar of strategic studies (using boldface) eludes me.
I did not say anything to the effect of Schmid being unreliable. So, why are you waving his credentials? TrangaBellam (talk) 21:48, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
@TrangaBellam sorry, are you kidding me?? Terrorism was one of the main element of "Strategy of Tension", a topic which pervaded the whole italian history after WW2 (https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Strategy_of_tension) RedStormed (talk) 21:52, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
@TrangaBellam: besides, what about some of the other reviewers?
  • Gearóid Barry, a historian of the interwar period and Christianity in France
  • R. J. B. Bosworth, specializing on Fascist Italy
  • John Veuglers, specializing in Italian far right
what do they have to do with terrorism and red brigades ??
"largely panned by the Western Academe as an ahistorical and fallacious tract" is simply mistification RedStormed (talk) 21:06, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
Please challenge their reliability and/or DUEness at RSN. TrangaBellam (talk) 21:48, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
@TrangaBellam: what is "RSN" ? RedStormed (talk) 21:55, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
I noticed Tranga didn't provide a link to that discussion at the Reliable Sources Noticeboard: here you go. I've toned down some of the rhetoric you objected to above. -- SashiRolls 🌿 · 🍥 01:43, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
Other Reviews (source: https://www.booktopia.com.au/anatomy-of-the-red-brigades-alessandro-orsini/book/9780801449864.html)
https://www.jstor.org/stable/26298567?seq=15 ("Perspectives on Terrorism", Vol. 6, No. 2, May 2012)
  • John Horgan, Director, International Center for the Study of Terrorism, Penn State University: "Anatomy of the Red Brigades is a disturbing journey into the suffocating, obsessive psychology of the Red Brigades mind-set. This book is captivating in its accounts, rich in its analysis, and profoundly important as an outstanding analysis of one of the bloodiest terrorist groups of the twentieth century."
  • Bruce Hoffman, Director, Center for Peace & Security Studies, Georgetown University, author of Inside Terrorism : "Anatomy of the Red Brigades provides a uniquely insightful and comprehensive account of one of history's most fascinating terrorist groups. Alessandro Orsini has written an important and original work that sheds new light on understanding the modern terrorist mind-set in general and the motivations of the Red Brigades specifically. His work thus makes a significant contribution to the literature on terrorists and terrorism."
  • Spencer DiScala, University of Massachusetts Boston : "What if the terrorism that shook the Western world from the late 1960s to the mid-1980s were unconnected to the economic, political, and social conditions? It is this possibility that Alessandro Orsini examines in this extraordinarily well-researched and well-documented book. Orsini has discovered that the terrorist mind-set always exists just below the surface, is difficult to cope with, is difficult to change, is irrational, and is likely to resurface at any time under conditions we cannot predict."
  • Journal of Cold War Studies (reviewing the Italian edition): "Alessandro Orsini has presented us with a book of high scholarly distinction. Anatomy of the Red Brigades is a tour de force of intellectual history and a major attempt to explain both the Italian experience with terrorism and terrorism in general."
@TrangaBellam RedStormed (talk) 21:42, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
We do not treat book-cover-reviews (blurbs) as proper reviews. Thanks, TrangaBellam (talk) 21:50, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

Elephant in the room

So, does there exist any high-quality source branding him as a fascist? TrangaBellam (talk) 21:08, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

@TrangaBellam [7] here Orsini states: "his grandpa had an happy life during fascism" if not fascist he's 100% a sympathizer (however you can clearly understand it by looking at the fact that he portrayed fascism as a "spiritual way of life" in the book My life in a fascist militia). Luix710 (talk) 19:58, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
[8] by "il riformista" (a reliable italian source). The message conveyed by Orsini is blatant: it's an exaltation, a normalization of the fascist regime. This is an unacceptable crime, purposefully made on the national liberation day against fascism, april 25th. Fascism was a dictatorial regime that deprived all Italians of their freedom, that persecuted Jews, communists, socialists, homosexuals, and Orsini basically endorsed and shared Hitler's views on Shoah. It's unacceptable for everyone to hear this statements. Luix710 (talk) 20:19, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
@Luix710 "Il riformista" is not reliable.
His director in chief is an italian political, Matteo Renzi, who is clearly biased against a critician of NATO.
(https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Il_Riformista) RedStormed (talk) 22:05, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
@RedStormed wikipedia is not a primary source, back your capering with an actual one Luix710 (talk) 23:03, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
All sources have biases of some kind, no unbiased source exists. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:47, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
The reference to "a spiritual way of life" shows a fundamental misunderstanding of Orsini. Orsini's theory is that all terrorists whether they are political or religious, whether they come from the left or the right are motivated by a form of messianism and a desire to purify the world. The reference to the spirituality of the fascists he studied is not intended to praise them but to show how they live a quasi-religious life imbued with the type of messianism and separation from reality that (in Orsini's view) is a prerequisite for someone to indulge in political violence. Dronkle (talk) 14:11, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
Again Bourg's review, which is highly critical of the book, accuses Orsini of being Lockean and of celebrating liberal democracy. So another critic of Orsini says that he is anything but a fascist.--Dronkle (talk) 16:35, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
Shane Burley - whom I mention in the section "Another Source which would need to be handled carefully" is highly critical of Orsini but it's clear even from just the two comments I quote that he considers Orsini to be naive rather than a fascist. Dronkle (talk) 14:05, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

Reviews on Red Brigade

We are back to charted waters (remember the Poland case?). A book gets smashed to smithereens by almost every academic working in the narrow domain but gets a couple of favorable reviews by outsiders - how do we strike a balance? TrangaBellam (talk) 14:43, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

FALSEBALANCE doesn't apply to reliable sources, especially those in academic journals. Trying to omit positive commentary from reliable sources is the exact problem that Italian Wikipedia was having with their article. If you want to note the expertise difference between the reviewers, then you can just include, as you already have, the background of each person in their profession and such. That makes it clear whose commentary is more important than others. SilverserenC 14:46, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
I have not read the page on it.wiki; it is affixed with a peculiar template and the history has literally vanished! That said, FALSEBALANCE comes into play; see the protracted discussions at this t/p thread. We are not an indiscriminate collection of information; that somebody has published a review does not automatically bind us to carry it. TrangaBellam (talk) 14:51, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
The dueness of two reviews have been challenged by me; I have started a subsection for each. TrangaBellam (talk) 15:37, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Foreign Affairs

"Lawrence Freedman, a British historian specializing in foreign policy, strategic affairs, and the Cold War, considered the book "remarkable" for including "stark and candid quotes" from Red Brigades members that came close to representing the mentality that leads to mass murder, but also noted that the book can be difficult to read at times due to Orsini's injection of personal views with "dollops of pedantic sociology"."
Something like that. And how is he unqualified exactly? He's a historian that focuses on foreign affairs, particularly of extremist nations like the Soviet Union and Middle Eastern nations. SilverserenC 15:05, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
Orsini's book is neither on Italy's foreign policy nor on Italy's strategic doctrines nor on the Cold War. To the best of my knowledge, Italy has never been a part of Soviet Union or the Middle Eastern States. Freedman is an IR doyen and resident capsule-reviewer for Foreign Affairs; that's it, and to the best of my knowledge, Freedman has never published anything on Italy. TrangaBellam (talk) 15:12, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
So literally the only sources you will accept is someone who specifically researches only Italy's extremist groups? That is beyond reductive. SilverserenC 15:15, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
Nope, it was me who added Christiane Olivo's review. You need to have some kind of familiarity with the subject matter which might come in the form of acquaintance with regional politics and history or ....
Neither Brian Sandberg nor Julian Bourg works on "Italy's extremist groups". TrangaBellam (talk) 15:17, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
Do you have this sort of absurd specificity for all published book reviews? Are reviews on a science book not allowed unless the reviewer is a scientist in that specific field? Are all reviews in newspapers automatically out for any book period because of that requirement? SilverserenC 15:21, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
Are reviews on a science book not allowed unless the reviewer is a scientist in that specific field? - Atleast in my field, we do not show such hubris at the first place lest we be asked uncomfortable questions later.
Are all reviews in newspapers automatically out for any book period because of that requirement? - These days, barring Foreign Affairs, MSM has largely done away with having resident-reviewers for non-fictions and instead, commission reviews from some specialist in the domain. TrangaBellam (talk) 15:33, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
That seems like an avoidance of the question. And you are very incorrect about newspapers, especially since we're referring to reviews from over a decade ago. I've written a number of book articles for books in the past 20 years and there's been a number of newspaper reviews whose authors were either not field related academics or weren't academics at all. For example, this one, where the author is an expert on German social and political thought, not US economic and agricultural history. Or this one, whose author is just a science writer with a background in climate change. Or this one, whose author is just a journalist. SilverserenC 16:15, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
You are talking about pop-sci. I am talking about specialist works. TrangaBellam (talk) 21:25, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Let us get back to something fundamental. At the time of writing this comment, I have expanded from three reviews; yet to, from five. All of them are from specialists in different domains that his book belongs to. Why are these eight reviewers unanimous in (1) declaring the work as ahistorical, (2) highlighting Orsini's failure to get past a superficial reading of sources, (3) criticial of the antiquated scholarly apparatus used by the author, and (4) dismissive of the generalizations?

The unusually strong denounciations of the book by multiple specialists speak volumes and we shall not bend backward — on account of his litigious tendencies — to accomodate a couple (?) of positive reviews by random academics. TrangaBellam (talk) 16:07, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

From the sounds of things, you already have a negative position on the subject and want to ensure the article reflects that. Ie the primary problem with Italian Wikipedia and the OWNers over there who were also preventing any of the positive coverage of his work to be included. Also, is that really how you'd define the position of Christiane Olivo's review? SilverserenC 16:15, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
Comment on content; not on contributors. I do neither know Italian nor have ever edited it.wiki; my interest was piqued from the Signpost article. If you feel that I have have summarised some review incorrectly, please be BOLD and fix it. TrangaBellam (talk) 16:18, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
It is your purposeful exclusion of content that's the problem. SilverserenC 16:31, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
Which part of WP:ONUS escapes you, Silverseren? TrangaBellam (talk) 16:57, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
The main issue with this source is that it is short and therefore it provides less information about what Orsini says than the other sources. But, given that the only uninvolved person to post in the thread at WP:RS/N has said that this source is reliable and can be used, I see no reason not to use the review should it say anything useful about the content of Orsini's book and the arguments he pus forward. This should be the main purpose of using these sources not the marks out of ten they give it. The focus in the reviews section in the article on who liked or disliked the book is unfortunate considering that reports from it.wiki-land are that what led to Orsini's lawyers writing to WMIT (and it seems making threats to sue six of the it.wiki users who worked on the article) was the attempts to include or exclude reviews based on whether their authors liked or disliked the book. Dronkle (talk) 15:30, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
I agree in principle, but in this case we have to account for the fact that Freedman liked the book so much that he picked it as one of Foreign Affairs' 30 "Best International Relations Books of 2011". That's no mean accolade. Andreas JN466 19:33, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
@TrangaBellam: Thats a tighter definition of expert than I've ever seen used before on wikipedia, why should we treat this article differently from all others? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:39, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

Paul J. Smith

Smith, Paul J. (June 2012). "Anatomy of the Red Brigades: The Religious Mind-Set of Modern Terrorists". Perspectives on Politics. 10 (2): 464–465.

Smith's research "focuses on transnational security issues and the international politics of East Asia" and he "teaches the Security Strategies course" at the Naval War College.

What makes him a qualified reviewer? To the best of my knowledge, the topic of Orsini's work has got nothing to do either with transnational security issues — pace his own formulations — or East Asia. TrangaBellam (talk) 15:03, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

He publishes on terrorism in general, the mentality that leads to it, and the issues of confronting it. He has a book published on specifically that topic. Do the Red Brigades not fall under terrorism studies? SilverserenC 15:11, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
No; Smith's work centers on modern state-sponsored terrorism. Terrorism is not a catch-all word. TrangaBellam (talk) 15:30, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
As mentioned at RSN, Smith actually authored a book chapter on the Red Brigades. Andreas JN466 14:51, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
Include. -- SashiRolls 🌿 · 🍥 20:35, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
Include. --Dronkle (talk) 12:19, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
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