Talk:Wanli Emperor
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[edit] Disputed neutrality
The current article presents a stereotyped and one-sided view of the Wanli Emperor as "unmotivated and avaricious" without considering the greater picture, in particular, the inherent problems of the Ming governing system and the difficulties faced by an Emperor confined to the Forbidden City, educated, cloistered and frustrated by a fractious and moralistic bureaucracy. The view presented in this article is heavily slanted towards the Fairbanks article cited. For a different view, I suggest the book "1587: A Year of No Significance" [1] by Ray Huang. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Bathrobe (talk • contribs).
A note on the Chinese historiographical pattern of praising founding emperors at the expense of their predecessors (who were often characterized in stock terms like "unmotivated and avaricious") might at least alert readers to the origins of this story, which bears a questionable relation to the historical Wanli emperor and emerges from a different set of rules than encyclopedia history. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 63.249.103.94 (talk)
- The article presents a fairly standard narrative of the Wanli Emperor. Actually Fairbank's narratve is based on Ray Huang, who is very negative in his appraisal of the Wanli Emperor. I have consequently removed the POV tag.--Niohe 05:05, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
