Talk:The empire on which the sun never sets

So where does the sun never set? And what article should cover that topic?

On this talk page, I see recurring references to the fact that this article is about the phrase "the empire on which the sun never sets", not about the geography of various empires and whether, astronomically, they literally had daylight at some point in their jurisdiction 24/7/365.

That's fine, but it seems that there really is interest in which countries did control territories so extensive worldwide that the sun never set there. This "What if" piece (cited elsewhere on this page) illustrates such interest. If we can't have the geographic/astronomical explanation in this article as to which empires the sun didn't set on (and when they lost territory such that the sun eventually did set on them), then we ought to cover that in some other article. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 02:41, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

This is an encyclopedia, not an indiscrimate collection of information or trivia. If an issue is sufficiently notable and covered by reliable sources then it should have a place, otherwise not. And in any case, in this instance it would be contentious. E.g. The Spanish Empire claimed all the oceans and also territory they hadn't even discovered - clearly bollocks - but there would be some who'd argue for it to be included. Wiki-Ed (talk) 18:28, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

Page Move

User:Kenwick has just moved this page without any discussion. The comment attached to the move implies that "Sun" should be capitalized because it is a personal name. Obviously, it is NOT a personal name. Has there been some consenusus somewhere that I have missed? Unless other users wish to support Kenwick and or s/he wishes to explain it to us, I will be reverting this promptly. --Doric Loon (talk) 09:05, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Hi Doric, thanks for raising the issue. I didn't bring this matter to discussion because I thought it was a typo. I will state my explanation here:

We capitalise the name of a celestial object when it is a proper noun. In other words, we only start a word with a capital letter if it names a specific celestial body, not just a type. For instance, the word ‘moon’ is a common noun (i.e. a type of celestial body). ‘Europa’, meanwhile, is a proper noun (i.e. a specific moon). As such, we don’t need to capitalise ‘moon’, but we do use a capital letter at the start of ‘Europa’. Other examples include:

Common Noun	Proper Noun
sun	Sirius, Proxima Centauri, the Sun (our sun)
moon	Titan, Callisto, the Moon (our moon)
galaxy	Milky Way Galaxy, Andromeda Galaxy
nebula	Orion Nebula, Crab Nebula

We also use the word Equator to distinguish between Earth's equator and other celestial object's equator (e.g. Saturn's equator, Mercury's equator etc.).

The NASA has published an article on their website which provides further clarification for capitalising terms: https://history.nasa.gov/styleguide.html

I hope my explanation above clarifies your concern. Kenwick (talk) 10:25, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

This requires discussion. While "Sun" capitalised is normal Wikipedia style, this article is about a phrase. There are several English-language quotes of the phrase (and variants) in this article and they all use lower case for "sun". --LukeSurl ^{t c} 13:23, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

This article is about the historical use of a phrase. If the original sources didn't capitalise then neither should we. Wiki-Ed (talk) 20:43, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

I am grateful to User:Kenwick for giving an explanation, but I am not convinced. NASA's usage is not particularly relevant here, since we are not talking about astronomy. We are talking about a specific example of the way ordinary people refer to the sun, and they really don't capitalize it. Just try Googling a common collocation like "the sun disappeared behind the clouds", and you will find this - nobody uses a capital. In the case of "The empire on which the sun never sets", things are complicated by the fact that some of the hits are book titles etc., which follow different convensions, but if you filter those out, you find the same thing; see here. In all of these sources, it is talking about our sun, but that doesn't mean people think of it as a name, any more than with "the world" or "the planet" or "the country", which are also not capitalized, even when a specific one is meant. --Doric Loon (talk) 22:03, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

This is a manual of style issue. In ordinary circumstances, "the Sun" is the standard usage (following the style used on Sun), and articles don't get to make a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS contrary to that. HOWEVER, quotations are generally rendered as they were made in the original text, and the vast majority of English-language discussions refer to "The empire on which the sun never sets". Therefore:

• The title of the article should be considered a quotation, and therefore use the dominant form in English language uses of it in the literature.
• Where the Sun is referred to as an object, outside of quotations, this should be capitalised. In a quick scan of the article I did not find any such uses currently.
• Quotations which are a translation from another language, such as the Greek in the "Possible precursors" section, should capitalise "Sun".

--LukeSurl ^{t c} 10:14, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Comment I support the use of capital letter Sun. The phrase was initially translated from other languages to English, so there is no original author who can claim literary property of this phrase. Since it was mistakenly written with a typo, there are no reasons for us to insist the use of this flawed term. 144.130.162.86 (talk) 06:52, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

The word "Sun" is capitalized when we are referring to the actual star, but this isn't really that sort of usage. It's more of a meteorological term here than an astronomical one. I would be very surprised to see something like "the Sun beat down on his back" or "the Sun was high in the sky". I wouldn't capitalize "the wind" or "the rain" and "the sun" in this formulation seems the same to me.--Khajidha (talk) 14:51, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

PS - here's the relevant part of MOSCAPS : "The words sun, earth, moon and solar system are capitalized (as proper names) when used to refer to a specific celestial body in an astronomical context (The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System; the Moon orbits Earth). They are not capitalized when used outside an astronomical context (It was a clear day and the sun felt warm), or when used in a general sense (Io is a moon of Jupiter). However, they are capitalized in personifications, as in Sol Invictus ('Unconquered Sun') was the ancient Roman sun god. " This would seem to support lower case in this instance. --Khajidha (talk) 14:54, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

• This does not seem like a personification (proper noun) case here. I had not seen that part of the MOS, and now that you have presented it this article seems squarely in the "outside an astronomical context" case, and therefore lower case should be used throughout. --LukeSurl ^{t c} 15:51, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

So the rules agree with our instincts: lower case! --Doric Loon (talk) 21:47, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

I kind of felt we'd resolved this a while ago. I would have reverted the page move myself... but on past experience I tend to mess that up so maybe someone else could?? Wiki-Ed (talk) 18:42, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

Wow, you are everywhere, I remember discussing with you about another subject before. Return to the topic though, I don't quite understand your rationale behind the sun as a meteorological term and the Sun as an astronomical term. From my point of view, both terms refer to the same subject, the Sun is always the Sun. Unless we are talking about another sun from a different star system, it will always be our sun, the Sun. 144.130.162.86 (talk) 10:32, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

MOS:CELESTIALBODIES makes the distinction. We can't make a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS to ignore it. If you want to change that style guide, Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters would be the place to go. --LukeSurl ^{t c} 13:41, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

• I have undone this move. We've sort of done "Bold, discuss, revert" rather than the recommended "Bold, revert, discuss", but it's clear that there is no consensus to make the move that was initially made without discussion last month. --LukeSurl ^{t c} 09:27, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

Pax Britannica etc.

The transfer of the sun motif from one empire to another shows a close parallel to the transfer of the pax motif: Pax Romana → Pax Hispanica → Pax Britannica → Pax Americana. While I don't think this should be writ large in the article, I do think either a sentence at the end of the head or an x-ref under "see also" would be appropriate. However this has been reverted several times. So I'd like to explain it here. First of all, some quotes, which I'll put in a foldaway box to stop this becoming too long.

Extended content

Eurocentric discourse projects a linear historical trajectory leading from classical Greece (constructed as "pure," "Western," and "democratic") to imperial Rome and then to the metropolitan capitals of Europe and the US. It renders history as a sequence of empires: Pax Romana, Pax Hispanica, Pax Britannica, Pax Americana. In all cases, Europe, alone and unaided, is seen as the "motor" for progressive historical change: it invents class society, feudalism, capitalism, the industrial revolution. Ella Shohat, Robert Stam, Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism And The Media, 2014, p. 3. With territories such as Canada, Australia, India, and large swathes of Africa all reporting to London, it was said that "the sun never set on the British Empire." With this great power, the British throughout most of the 19th century enforced what later historians have dubbed the "Pax Britannica," or British peace. […] While the U.S. doesn't own imperial territory in the sense that the British Empire once did, American armed forces have military bases across the globe. The sun never sets on the U.S. military, and many people view the current decades of relative peace after World War II as a "Pax Americana." Joel Litman, Powering the Pax Americana, January 24, 2020 (https://altimetry.com/articles/powering-the-pax-americana). A century ago, economic globalization was as high by some measures as it is today. World finance rested on a gold standard, immigration was at unparalleled levels, trade was increasing, and Britain had an empire on which the sun never set. […] America's soft power “looms even larger than its economic and military assets. U.S. culture, low‐brow or high, radiates outward with an intensity last seen in the days of the Roman Empire—but with a novel twist. Rome's and Soviet Russia's cultural sway stopped exactly at their military borders. America's soft power, though, rules over an empire on which the sun never sets. […] The political scientist Robert Gilpin has argued that “Pax Britannica and Pax Americana, like the Pax Romana, ensured an international system of relative peace and security.” Joseph Nye, "Limits of American Power", Political Science Quarterly, vol. 131 (2016), 267-283. This capability is, in essence, the instrument of Pax Americana, of U.S. imperial power around the world. In thirty nations we have 430 major bases and about 1,600 lesser installations. As with its imperial predecessor, " the sun never sets " on the US military establishment. Sane World vol. 12, Indiana 1973, p. 73 (publication of National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy) When we think of empires to resist, we may think of Pax Romana, the ordered “peace” enforced by Rome in the first centuries. Perhaps we recall the more recent Pax Britannica, that ordered “peace” worded by British colonialism to produce an empire on which “the sun never sets.” But now there is a special need to worship with a sense of U.S. empire, or of Pax Americana. Brian K. Blount & Leonora Tisdale (ed), Making Room at the Table: An Invitation to Multicultural Worship, 2000, p. 115 Rul Laningan, giovane attivista filippino contro le basi militari, suggerì per primo che l'American Friends Service Committee scrivesse The Sun Never Sets . [...] Le basi militari USA, è importante saperlo, fanno parte di una rete globale nell'era della cosiddetta Pax Americana, che richiama alla mente il concetto di Pax Romana il cui motto Dal militare al civile: la conversione preventiva della base USAF di Aviano (published by Comitato unitario contro Aviano), 2006, p. 21 The United States and Britain emerged from World War II with close ties but very unequal power. Britain was exhausted and the United States was at the pinnacle of world economic and military power. The U.S. establishment set about replacing Pax Britannica with a Pax Americana more firmly based in a world system that was no longer fragmented between rival European empires. Gerson, The Sun never sets, p. 210 And this pride saw its most majestic achievements in the history of humanity: The Roman Empire and the Pax Hispanica, “the Empire on which the sun never sets” as the saying went in four centuries from the 16th to the 19th because of its global hegemony where it was daytime in at least one of its colonial territory. “A tale of two Kindred Folks… in the Time of Covid-19”, 2020 (https://ruelfpepa.wordpress.com/2020/04/02/a-tale-of-two-kindred-folks-in-the-time-of-covid-19/) (Also the source already in the article at footnote 45, which I don't have in front of me any more, but says roughly that the metaphors of pax Americana and the sun never setting on America have been used strategically in American foreign policy.) Hausteiner, Eva Marlene; Huhnholz, Sebastian; Walter, Marco (2010). "Imperial Interpretations: The Imperium Romanum as a Category of Political Reflection". mediterraneo antico. 13: 11–16.

Two things to note here. First of all, the pax metaphor was borrowed through a sequence of dominant powers in much the same way as our article shows the sun-setting metaphor being borrowed. The first passage cited above is the clearest statement of that. That in itself would warrant a "see also". But secondly, the two metaphors are constantly being discussed in the same context. Quote 2 above is the clearest statement of this, but quotes 3-9 have it too. This shouldn't surprise us, since essentially the two phrases mean the same thing. The idea of the sun never setting implies that an empire has become geographically expansive. The pax idea suggests that an empire has dominated such a vast portion of the world that previously warring nations are now unified. (N.B. the terminology Pax Romana and Pax Hispanica is also used by historians for periodization, but obviously that is not their original sense: when a first-century Roman bragged about the Pax Romana he was talking about the size of the empire, not the historical period he was living in.) I think the above provides adequate referencing. I would be happiest if we can arrive at a consensus here, but if nobody has a good counter-argument, I propose to put this back into the article in a very minor way. Doric Loon (talk) 19:54, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

At first glance, this looks promising. Of course, we have to be very careful and conservative about what (if anything) we include in the article so as not to unduly emphasize WP:MINORASPECTS of the topic "the empire on which the sun never sets" (ideally, the sources should be on that phrase and discuss the connection to the Pax [polity] construction). I would note that there are a large number of periods of regional peace using the Pax X construction, so there needs to be a good justification for each inclusion and exclusion based on the sources. Did you have any particular phrasing in mind? TompaDompa (talk) 15:00, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

@TompaDompa You are right that it is a minor aspect. The idea is only to suggest the connection and give links, so the reader has the tools to pursue the idea themself. You are also right that there have been others (Pax Sovietica springs to mind). My suggestion is to include Rome, obviously since the pax rhetoric begins with Rome and all others are calqued on it, and then mention only the three empires which are featured in the current article. My earlier edits that were reverted (see) suggest two possible wordings, but I'm not attached to them. If it goes in as a sentence at the end of the lead, it should have a reference, maybe the Litman one above (number 2 in the box) or Nye (number 3), but one reference is enough. If it goes in "see also", it doesn't need a reference. I think I prefer the former. It doesn't need to be in both places. Doric Loon (talk) 08:53, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

I suppose I can see the logic in including the three empires mentioned in the article (not counting the Empire of Charles V) as well as the original Pax Romana. That being said, what we want to say is that both terms were transferred from one dominant empire to the next in succession in similar ways, and we don't really have the sources to back that up. The ones you list above are suggestive, but what we need is explicit. TompaDompa (talk) 17:59, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

@TompaDompa No, these are really not suggestive. The first source, a sound scholarly study, explicitly speaks of "a linear historical trajectory" rendering "a sequence of empires: Pax Romana, Pax Hispanica, Pax Britannica, Pax Americana", i.e. it explicitly attests the transfer of the pax-motif from empire to empire in a sequence which the source says is typical of European thinking. (The paper goes on to challenge the normative status of European thinking, but that is a different story.) The other sources explicitly attest the fact that the two notions (sun and pax) are regularly used in the same discourse. And those two points are all I ever proposed that we should report - we're not going to make bigger claims that go beyond what these sources explicitly say.

To be honest, I'm a bit unclear about why you are resisting this. You don't seem to be challenging the ideas, which I think are uncontroversial. You were quite right to ask for sources, but now we have them, and they are a lot stronger than Wikipedia usually requires for connections of the "see also" type, what exactly is worrying you? All we are trying to do here is to provide a helpful link from one idea to another partially parallel one, so the reader can browse comfortably on. We're not writing up any thesis saying how the link is to be understood. So unless you are seeing a problem that I am completely missing, I don't understand why we are not approaching consensus. Doric Loon (talk) 15:12, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

The first source doesn't mention the phrase "the empire on which the sun never sets" (at least not in the portion you quoted). It's explicit about the transfer of the "pax" motif, but doesn't connect it to the transfer of the "sun never sets" motif. That's the issue. That's what we need explicit sourcing for. TompaDompa (talk) 15:25, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

@TompaDompa Indeed, that's what I said. The first source is explicit about the transfer of the "pax" motif, and the OTHER EIGHT connect it to the "sun never sets" motif. The second source makes this link twice, once for Britain and once for America, showing both of them as a transfer. I think you are looking for sourcing for something more complicated that I was not in any case going to put in the article.

How about this wording (at the end of the article head, because it doesn't belong under any one empire)?: "The motif is sometimes used together with the motif of Pax Romana, Pax Hispanica, Pax Britannica, Pax Americana, which is also transferred from one empire to the next." Doric Loon (talk) 15:39, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

What I imagined was something along the lines of The transfer of the epithet from one dominant empire to the next is paralleled by the succession from Pax Romana through Pax Hispanica and Pax Britannica to Pax Americana., which is something we categorically do not have sufficient sourcing for. We don't have the necessary sources for the connection between the transfer of the "pax" motif and the transfer of the "sun never sets" motif. Source 5, for instance, mentions the "sun never sets" motif for Britain, and the "pax" motif for Rome, Britain, and the US, but doesn't say anything about the transfer of either motif and doesn't draw parallels between the transfers of motifs (obviously). I also disagree with your reading of source 2—mentioning both motifs for Britain and the US is not the same thing as comparing the transfer of one motif to the transfer of the other motif. Your proposed wording is a bit softer than I thought you wanted, but still runs into WP:SYNTH problems with parallels between motif transfers. TompaDompa (talk) 16:11, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Doric Loon I normally agree with you, but on this I lean towards TompaDompa's position. If I understand correctly there are two issues:

(1) See Also. I think that's fine. It is reasonable to point readers to similar concepts even if there isn't explicit sourcing.

(2) Text in the article. Although the sources you've offered touch on the point, I don't think any of them are sufficiently explicit (Google translate horribly butchered source #6 so I don't actually know what that says...?). And when you say "The first source is explicit about the transfer of the "pax" motif, and the OTHER EIGHT connect it to the "sun never sets" motif" that is synthesis - linking the assertions made by different sources to come to a new conclusion.

I should stress I don't disagree with your argument - I think there's something there about hubris and empires etc etc - I just don't think we can verify it with the sources offered. If we can find another - or if someone sees this and writes a book that looks at this issue - then I think we can revisit this.Wiki-Ed (talk) 22:46, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Follow up point - actually I don't entirely agree with the argument. You say "essentially the two phrases mean the same thing", but I don't think that's entirely true. One is a boast about geographical extent, one is a boast about enforcing peace. We don't seem to have evidence of the Romans using "the sun never sets", but they did use Pax Romana. The French and Dutch (and others) could have legitimately used "the sun never sets" (although they don't appear to have done so), but there's no "pax franca" or equivalent. So if there is a link, it's a bit more complex and requires an expert view on the psychology of empire builders in different cultural groups. If such a thing exist. As it is, we don't have sources explaining the variations. Wiki-Ed (talk) 22:54, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

@Wiki-Ed Thanks for weighing in and providing a third perspective - sometimes when there are just two of us discussing a thing, we can get bogged down. As TompaDompa noticed, I did soften the wording from my first suggestion, but if you both feel it is still SYNTH, we should wait till other sources turn up.

@TompaDompa Do you agree with Wiki-Ed that we have enough for a "See Also"? Doric Loon (talk) 09:21, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

Honestly, I think it's a bit dubious. I don't think the connection is self-evident. Per WP:SEEALSO, Editors should provide a brief annotation when a link's relevance is not immediately apparent, and then we're kind of back where we started. I briefly considered using the {{See also}} template in the relevant sections, but our article on Pax Hispanica especially really has nothing to do with the topic of this article. TompaDompa (talk) 20:27, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

Archiving

This page was getting a bit long, so I have archived most of it. However I ran into a problem at Talk:The empire on which the sun never sets/Archive 1#The British empire and the American Empire - the page refused to save changes because a blocked site was cited. So I deleted the cite and put in a note to that effect. Does anyone know if this is the best way to deal with that? (You can find the deleted link by going to an older version of this main page and searching for "Nationmaster".) Doric Loon (talk) 10:15, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

Challenging deletion of properly sourced assertion

I'm challenging this particular deletion by User:TompaDompa on 18 September 2022, which I just reverted. The assertion, which I inserted, is adequately cited to The New York Times, a reliable source.

The grounds given was: "Dubious inclusion. We would need sources discussing this use, not engaging in it." This makes no sense for singling out the example of the NYT's discussion of Disney parks over any other. Every single citation in the article appears to be "engaging in it." If you believe that's a problem (i.e., if the entire article amounts to a WP:NOT or WP:NOR issue), then submit this article to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion. --Coolcaesar (talk) 19:34, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

Per WP:PROPORTION: An article should not give undue weight to minor aspects of its subject but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight proportional to its treatment in the body of reliable, published material on the subject. Do WP:Reliable sources on the subject of the phrase "the empire on which the sun never sets" cover the aspect of it being applied to private American corporations?

This is properly sourced as an example of this type of use, but the underlying assertion that The phrase has also been applied to private American corporations. is your personal WP:ANALYSIS. Why "private American corporations"? Why not "The Walt Disney Company"? Why not "theme parks"? Why not "private corporations? This kind of analysis needs to come from the sources, because otherwise you are engaging in WP:Original research. TompaDompa (talk) 19:48, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

I remember an identical discussion several years ago and nothing has changed, so I'll just copy and paste what I said then: The Walt Disney company is not an 'empire', it is not ruled by an emperor and it does not govern a collection of territories. I am, of course, familiar with the informal use of the term to cover multinational enterprises, but that is generally applied to companies dominated by a single powerful individual (e.g. Rupert Murdoch, ) rather than a board, as is the case with Disney. In any case we make it clear in the introduction that we are talking about historical empires, not companies. Furthermore, your sources do not use the word "empire", they simply say that the sun never sets on... There are lots of things the sun does not set on; this article is not a list of those things, regardless of whether we can find sources showing that someone says that they are. TompaDompa is correct, this is synthesis and should be removed. Wiki-Ed (talk) 09:58, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Empire of Charles V

There needs to be an unambiguous, contemporaneous reference to the use of the phrase regarding Charles V's empire. There are references in standard biographies of him being "His Majesty to whom the whole world is subject" (Hugh Thomas, The Golden Empire: Spain, Charles V, and the Creation of America. Random House 2010, 35) but not the exact or even close to the wording that is the subject of this article. If such a contemporary quotation exists, please give the citation. Amuseclio (talk) 19:39, 16 December 2022 (UTC)Amuseclio

@Amuseclio: I'm not sure I understand the objection. Peoples and Empires: A Short History of European Migration, Exploration, and Conquest, from Greece to the Present says As a result his empire was to be the first in human history on which, in Ariosto's words, "the sun never set." Other sources (though not the ones cited in the article) also attribute this to Ariosto. TompaDompa (talk) 06:19, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

I edited the article text to explicitly cite Pagden's citation of Ariosto. I am consulting with colleagues in Spanish history about the use of the quote for Charles V's empire. It would be optimal to track down the publication details of the Ariosto quotation. Amuseclio (talk) 16:32, 17 December 2022 (UTC)Amuseclio

It's unclear who invented the concept, if Charles himself and/or some of his collaborators and Ariosto took it from him/them, or the other way around (Ariosto made it up and he was copied). It's also been claimed that this phrase is in fact simply a variation of the Roman concept of ruling "from the rising to the setting of the sun". However, whatever the origin, it was was in use in Charles's time. As far as I know Ariosto wrote it in some passages of the Orlando Furioso (maybe somewhere else as well?), but it's not in the original version of 1515, rather in a revised version of the 1520s and 1530s. I don't know if that's the quote used by Padgen, but in book 15, Ariosto exhalts Charles by saying that he has the crowns of the roman empire and of far lands, so that the sun never sets and seasons never pass on his realms. It's written in the form of a prediction. It could be another passage however. Barjimoa (talk) 11:47, 12 May 2023 (UTC)