Talk:Arthur Bryant

Allegations of Nazism

So many people in Britain hate those who are successful. It is always easy to find a few (Roberts, Plumb) who will heap filth upon someone more successful than themselves. Roberts has heaped cheap 'Nazi' jibes on others before and has treated people with total disrespect. The best put-down to Roberts were the two letters published in The Daily Telegraph on 16 August 2003, from Daphne Guinness, and Lord Moyne. The fact remains that Bryant was an extremely popular historian and brought easily readable history to millions who might otherwise not have read it. We don't actually know that he specifically went to Germany to "celebrate Hitler's birthday". (Germany was a popular holiday destination, especially as the Reichsbahn offered special rates for foreign passport holders). Presumably he could have gone to the North Pole and still done that. My grandparents were in Berlin in 1936 and 1938 and visited the (old) Chancellery where they signed Hitler's birthday book. They were not Nazis but they thought it all rather thrilling. One tires of all this endless Nazi garbage. 81.131.143.196 18:36, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

This article is a hatchet job.

This article is nothing more than a dressed-up hatchet-job. It should have the warning label, such as appears on the entry for Douglas MacArthur, pasted prominently at the top of the page, stating that it appears to be non-neutral. (TEMPLATE NOW APPLIED) How can one take an article seriously that quotes a page from the "Spartacus" web site? As for Andrew Roberts, while a serious writer, he is far from a disinterested or neutral commentator, as the contributor above points out. J.H. Plumb falls into the same camp, and in fact in Plumb's case it may have been sheer envy of Bryant's success, commercial and public. Bryant's reputation may justly have declined from the apogee it once enjoyed, but her certainly doesn't deserve the calumny heaped upon him by this article.

One specific point calls for refutation. The article suggests that Bryant's two volumes of Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke's war-time diaries are slanted against Winston Churchill. On the contrary, having read both Bryant's edition and the full Alanbooke diaries published a couple of years ago, I think that the unexpurgated diaries show Alanbrooke to have been significantly more acerbic about and critical of Churchill than Bryant "allowed" him to be in the two edited/redacted volumes. Philiphurst 19:26, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Amendments

I am not competent to discuss the Alanbrooke diaries, but I have proffered some changes to this article (including the opening section, and a reference to Chesterton not previously present) which will, I hope, leave a fairer impression of Bryant's other achievements (which I admire). Unfortunately I do not know how to avoid using a pseudonym via Wikipedia editing, but I have no objection to providing my real name for anyone who wants it. User:Respighi 21:50, 7 August 2008

Attlee

We read:

Of his 1980 book, The Elizabethan Experience, the historian C. V. Wedgwood said: "[...]" ¶ Also, Earl Attlee, K.G., O.M., said: "...as in all your historical works, you throw a bright light on the past. As a lover of history and of England I can enjoy your writing more than that of any living historian. You carry on a great tradition."

This implies to me that Attlee was commenting on the 1980 book. I had only previously been aware of one Attlee: Clem, who predeceased its publication. I've no reason to think that his son, Earl in 1980, had the [rare] O.M. (offhand I don't know what "K.G." means).

Something is very wrong here. At the very least, this is both a pompous and a vague way to refer to a specific Attlee.

Further: although I know little about historiography the article leaves a strange taste and the comments on this talk page above have a certain persuasiveness. -- Hoary (talk) 23:34, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

And did Bryant ever write such a book? Not The Elizabethan Deliverance? If the title is wrong, can we give any credence whatever to this purported transcription of a blurb? -- Hoary (talk) 11:04, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Another editor has now changed the book title and the Attlee.

I no longer believe a word of this. For one thing, would Attlee junior have got the O.M.? (These have always been rare.) I think that conscientious editors have been trying too hard to guess the meaning of what was carelessly written here much earlier. Rather than iron out inconsistencies to produce a plausible result that could be entirely wrong, I thought it better to delete the whole section: which I've just now done. -- Hoary (talk) 04:36, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Two things: "KG" meant that Attlee was a Knight of the Garter, the premier English order of knighthood. Second, it would have been difficult for the first Earl to have commented on a book published in 1980, since he died in 1967. Neither the second or third Earl have either the Garter or the OM. Jhobson1 (talk) 13:01, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

POV

The POV tag seemingly relates to the apparent disproportionate criticism of the subject from a group of others. I personally agree that, based on the information available to me, that material is likely excessive, given that the information I found on such matters in the three sources I consulted has been added and specifically cited. I would not object to significantly reducing the amount of content in the extant "Controversy" section, as it seems to me to be possibly excessively long and in violation of WP:Undue weight. Other opinions? John Carter (talk) 15:12, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

No, go ahead. Try to conserve the more substantive and more authoritative material, of course -- perhaps via summary rather than verbatim quotation. -- Hoary (talk) 12:59, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Well written article, but still a hatchett job

Bryant is one of my favourite writers, but there is absolutely no evidence he was a nazi (Or very flimsy evidence) Its passes off basic quotes from divergent professional historians (With whom popular history was anatema) and accuse the man of being a nazi. And the worst thing is, bringing this up will result in either being completely ignored, or in the worst case scenario reverted by the POV editors an admins who run this place. People's encyclopedia - don't make me laugh. 86.40.97.213 (talk) 23:39, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Atrocious

This article is despicable. It makes all kinds of unsubstantiated claims which are simply not backed up. Unfortunately any dissent mentioned on this page gets ignored. I demand this article be deleted as it does not meet encyclopedic standards and makes all sorts of scurrilous untrue allegations against a man unable to defend himself. End this farce, end this article. Help me in the process of deletion. Realist01 (talk) 17:23, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

There is no way it is going to be deleted, given the fact that the subject obviously easily meets notability criteria. However, if you have specific objections to specific material, much of which I myself might not necessarily disagree with, we can discuss whether or not to remove or reduce that material. John Carter (talk) 17:35, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Thats a typical politicians answer. 90% of this article requires deletion. Realist01 (talk) 18:00, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

And the above answer, which refuses to point out any particular errors and just comments on others, is particularly counterproductive. The bulk of the biographical material in the article was material I myself found in articles on the subject in generally short articles in other works, most all of which could be considered "Biographical encyclopedia", which would seem to indicate that the material in those "encyclopedia" would be reasonably counted as "encyclopedic" enugh for inclusion here. And I pretty much took all the data from each of them for inclusion in this article. Personally, I have no objections to the removal of the unsourced material you did remove, but any materal which is reliably sourced as pe WP:RS shoulf probably stay until and unless there is a consensus to either its outright removal or reduction of the amount of material in it. SO, if you have any particular material you would wish to challenge, particularly if it is sourced, I think the best approach, and probably the onlyone that would not be likely to create unncessary conflict, would be to indicate what specific material you object to here, and get consensus to remove it before attempting to delete any such material. John Carter (talk) 18:16, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Stop being so bloody polite and point out where you stand. The overwhelming majority of this article, perhaps 95%, must be rewritten. Your either with me or against me. Realist01 (talk) 18:21, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Your initial complaint was that some of this information wasn't backed up. As the person who wrote the bulk of the biographical information, I can say that any of that information which is included in a sentence with a citiation included is in fact backed up by those sources cited. Therefore, I would suggest that you perhaps read WP:NPA and WP:CIVILITY and point out specifically which information you consider not backed up, and, then, if sources for it cannot be found, it could be removed. However, generally, we give a few days for someone to find sourcing and add it before doing so. John Carter (talk) 18:34, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Ignore "Realist01". He's blocked, belatedly. -- Hoary (talk) 12:32, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Help me in the process of deletion. Yes, certainly. All you need do is follow the clear, step-by-step instructions here. -- Hoary (talk) 00:30, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Copy-edits

Feedback welcome. Lfstevens (talk) 03:22, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Namesake?

The Mayor of St Pancras for 1955-6 was Cllr Arthur Bryant A.M.I. B.E. (see [1] and reference 1) - what relationship to this AB? Jackiespeel (talk) 15:20, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

In absence of evidence of familial link I doubt he is the same man. Other Mayors listed include a Lilian Bryant, in office a few years earlier, but there is no sign of a Lilian among the female relations of the historian in this article.Cloptonson (talk) 14:34, 2 February 2023 (UTC)