This peer review discussion has been closed.
First, forgive the state of the references section. Most of it was there when I got to the article, and I plan to go through at a later date and remove the ones that haven't been used.
The main thing I'm looking for is cohesiveness. I reorganized the article completely when I started working on it, and the "Pierce's dilemma" section is a creation of my own after I'd sorted out and expanded upon the previous content. I felt this separated Pierce's immediate situation from e.g. Jefferson and allowed me to elaborate a bit more on why his administration acted the way it did. There was formerly a section called "Soule's role" but it felt better this way. I want to make sure the sections mesh well with each other and progress logically. Then, of course, the usual prose suggestions and such.
Thanks, Recognizance ( talk) 00:04, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
Brianboulton comments: An interesting account of a corner of history probably completely unknown to the vast majority of Brits. My chief thought, after a first read-through, was that the article is light on detail, and might be hard to defend on the comprehensiveness criterion. For example, in the Creation section you don't give the date on which these envoys met, you don't say they met in Ostend, and you don't mention that they had a follow-up meeting in Aix-la-Chapelle. We are pretty much in the dark as to what the Manifesto they drew up actually contained, apart from the proposed purchase price for Cuba and the back-up option of using force. Likewise, we are told that the details of the document were leaked, but not told how this occurred or, more importantly, to whom the leak was made. Presumably to a newspaper, and if so, what paper?
I have not commented on the list of "references" which you evidently have in hand. Apart from a general need to flesh out the article I have numerous further points:-
With appropriate additional work this could easily become a Good Article, perhaps even featured in due course. As I can't watch all my peer reviews, please ping my talk page if you have questions arising from this review. Otherwise, good luck wth the article. Brianboulton ( talk) 11:04, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
I agree with Brian's comments. And yes, this is an interesting account of the Ostend Manifesto, which is often overlooked in high school, and indeed college level instruction. Not one of the US glorious moments in foreign policy.
In terms of my own comments, I have several writing/style comments that will also strengthen the content by making stronger statements. I suggest stronger verbs: viewed, considered, stopped, instead of had considered, had stopped etc. for example, Congress considered the "Black Warrior" affair as ....... If you need this many "helping" verbs, you probably have your subjects switched with your objects.
The overview can be much stronger: for example, this is the text you have in the introduction:
The Ostend Manifesto was a secret document written in 1854 by U.S. diplomats at Ostend, Belgium, describing a plan to acquire Cuba from Spain. A product of the debate over slavery in the United States, Manifest Destiny, and the Monroe Doctrine, the document was not intended to be made public; when news of its existence was leaked, it resulted in public outcry both domestically and abroad. The fallout over the Ostend Manifesto dealt a significant blow to the administration of U.S. President Franklin Pierce, and effectively ruled out any discussions of Cuba's annexation during the prelude to the American Civil War. While the document was never acted upon, American intervention in Cuba would next surface near the end of the nineteenth century in the Spanish-American War, renewing interest in the island among expansionists.
I suggest the following:
The Ostend Manifesto, a secret document written in 1854 by U.S. diplomats at Ostend, Belgium, described a plan to acquire Cuba from Spain. A product of the debates in the United States over slavery, Manifest Destiny, and the Monroe Doctrine, the document was not intended to be made public. News of its existence resulted in public outcry, both in the United States and in Europe. The fallout over the Ostend Manifesto dealt a significant blow to the administration of U.S. President Franklin Pierce, and in particular to Pierce's foreign policy, and effectively ruled out any discussion of Cuba's annexation as a "slave state" during the years prior to the American Civil War. While the document was never acted upon, American intervention in Cuba would next surface near the end of the nineteenth century in the Spanish-American War, reflecting a renewed interest in the island among expansionists.
The suggested rewrite accomplishes the following:
*sixth, while your sources are more than adequate for this article, do you have some perspective to add from the Carib. angle? You've told us what the US perspective was, the European reaction, but what about the rest of the "American" perspective?
I would say to move up a classification, you need the latter in particular.-- Auntieruth55 ( talk) 16:24, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
I did a quick search to see what is available, using JSTOR as a barometer, and I'm surprised more hasn't been written on the Ostend Manifesto from the Central American and South American perspective! Soooo, I've crossed out the bit above. -- Auntieruth55 ( talk) 21:43, 24 May 2009 (UTC)