How has Wikipedia's Arthur Golden article changed?

Wikipedia's first sentence called it "writer of the famous novel memoirs of a geisha". Today it says "american writer". We saved the article's opening at 6 moments between 2005 and 2025, and every claim links the exact revision.

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Arthur Golden

Wikipedia's first sentence called it “writer of the famous novel memoirs of a geisha”. Today it says “american writer”.

Measured, not asserted. Every count, date and revision on this page was taken from Wikipedia's own history and checked against the live article. The words quoted are theirs.

Machine-checked against the full current article on 2026-08-03.

We saved snapshots of this article over twenty years; you are reading the 2005 one. Red dashes: removed from Wikipedia since. Pale dots: rewritten; the numbered note shows what it says now. ¹ tap a number or a side note to jump between them

The opening as it read in 2005

Arthur Golden is the writer of the famous novel Memoirs of a Geisha . He was born in in 1956 in Chattanooga, Tennessee .¹ He was educated at Harvard College and received a degree in art history, specializing in Japanese art. In 1980, he earned a M.A. in Japanese history at Columbia University , and also learned Mandarin Chinese .² After a summer at Beijing University , he worked in Tokyo .³ When he returned to the United States, he earned an M.A. in English at Boston University .⁴ He currently lives in Brookline, Massachusetts with his wife Trudy Legee, whom he married in 1982, and his two children. He is adored in the New England writing community.⁵ Memoirs of a Geisha is being made into a feature film starring Zhang Ziyi and Ken Watanabe , and directed by Rob Marshall . v t e⁶

This is Wikipedia's own text, saved in our repository. Their copy of it is revision 17742906.

The opening as it stood in 2010 5 passages from the previous snapshot no longer appear

Arthur Golden (born 1956) is an American novelist . Golden is a member of the Ochs - Sulzberger family (owners of the New York Times ). He was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee , grew up on Lookout Mountain, Georgia , and attended Lookout Mountain Elementary School in Lookout Mountain, Tennessee . He spent his middle and high school years at the Baylor School (then a boys-only school for day and boarding students) in Chattanooga, graduating in 1974. He attended Harvard University and received a degree in art history, specializing in Japanese art. In 1980, he earned an M.A. in Japanese history at Columbia University , and also learned Mandarin Chinese . After a summer at Peking University in Beijing, China, he worked in Tokyo . When he returned to the United States, he earned an M.A. in English at Boston University . He currently lives in Brookline, Massachusetts . He has a son and a daughter, Tess who recently graduated from Brown University. After its release in 1997, Memoirs of a Geisha spent two years on the New York Times bestseller list. It has sold more than four million copies in English and has been translated into thirty-two languages around the world. The novel Memoirs of a Geisha was written over a 10-year period during which Golden rewrote the entire novel three times, changing the point of view before finally settling on the first person viewpoint of Sayuri. Interviews with a number of geisha, including Mineko Iwasaki , provided background information about the world of the geisha. After the Japanese edition of Memoirs of a Geisha was published, Golden was sued for breach of contract and defamation of character by Iwasaki. The plaintiff claimed that Golden had agreed to protect her anonymity, if she told him about her life as a geisha due to the traditional code of silence about their clients. Iwasaki sued Golden for breach of contract and defamation of character in 2001. The lawsuit was settled out of court in February 2003. In 2005, Memoirs of a Geisha was made into a feature film starring Ziyi Zhang and Ken Watanabe , and directed by Rob Marshall , garnering three Academy Awards .

Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 366849639.

Today

Wikipedia's first sentence called it “writer of the famous novel memoirs of a geisha”. Today it says “american writer”. Read the current article and compare.

Counts in the opening at each snapshot. Green: the word gained ground. Red: it was cut. Grey: no change.
	2005	2010	2015	2020	Oct '23	2025

What Wikipedia says this is

Every article opens by defining its subject. This one was redefined since 2005, and today's defining sentence is their current revision.

Then

writer of the famous novel memoirs of a geisha

Now

american writer

1. Removed 2 sentences: “Arthur Golden is the writer of the famous novel Memoirs of a…” In the article until 2005 (rev), gone by 2010 (rev).

2. Removed 2 sentences: “He was educated at Harvard College and received a degree in art…” In the article until 2010 (rev), gone by 2015 (rev).

3. Removed: “After a summer at Beijing University , he worked in Tokyo .” In the article until 2005 (rev), gone by 2010 (rev).

4. Removed: “When he returned to the United States, he earned an M.A. in…” In the article until 2010 (rev), gone by 2015 (rev).

5. Removed 2 sentences: “He currently lives in Brookline, Massachusetts with his wife Trudy Legee, whom…” In the article until 2005 (rev), gone by 2010 (rev).

6. Removed: “Memoirs of a Geisha is being made into a feature film starring…” In the article until 2010 (rev), gone by 2015 (rev).

Struck red text is no longer in the article; dotted amber text was rewritten. Every revision id links to Wikipedia's copy; the text shown is our own saved copy. Data: /data. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA; quoted for the record; not affiliated with Wikipedia.

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