首页
登录
职称英语
David Landes, author of The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So R
David Landes, author of The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So R
游客
2023-12-16
50
管理
问题
David Landes, author of The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor, credits the world’s economic and social progress over the last thousand years to "Western civilization and its dissemination." The reason, he believes, is that Europeans invented systematic economic development. Landes adds that three unique aspects of European culture were crucial ingredients in Europe’s economic growth.
First, science developed as an autonomous method of intellectual inquiry that successfully disengaged itself from the social constraints of organized religion and from the political constraints of centralized authority. Though Europe lacked a political center, its scholars benefited from the use of a single vehicle of communication: Latin. This common tongue facilitated an adversarial discourse in which new ideas about the physical world could be tested, demonstrated, and then accepted across the continent and eventually across the world.
Second, Landes espouses a generalized form of Max Weber’s thesis that the values of work, initiative, and investment made the difference for Europe. Despite his emphasis on science, Landes does not stress the notion of rationality as such. In his view, "what counts is work, thrift, honesty, patience, [and] tenacity." The only route to economic success for individuals or states is working hard, spending less than you earn, and investing the rest in productive capacity. This is his fundamental explanation of the problem posed by his book’s subtitle: "Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor." For historical reasons -- an emphasis on private property, an experience of political pluralism, a temperate climate, an urban style -- Europeans have, on balance, followed those practices and therefore have prospered.
Third, and perhaps most important, Europeans were learners. They "learned rather greedily," as Joel Mokyr put it in a review of Landes’s book. Even if Europeans possessed indigenous technologies that gave them an advantage (spectacles, for example), as Landes believes they did, their most vital asset was the ability to assimilate knowledge from around the world and put it to use -- as in borrowing the concept of zero and rediscovering Aristotle’s Logic from the Arabs and taking paper and gunpowder from the Chinese via the Muslim world. Landes argues that a systematic resistance to learning from other cultures had become the greatest handicap of the Chinese by the eighteenth century and remains the greatest handicap of Arab countries today.
Although his analysis of European expansion is almost nonexistent, Landes does not argue that Europeans were beneficent bearers of civilization to a benighted world. Rather, he relies on his own commonsense law: "When one group is strong enough to push another around and stands to gain by it, it will do so." In contrast to the new school of world historians, Landes believes that specific cultural values enabled technological advances that in turn made some Europeans strong enough to dominate people in other parts of the world. Europeans therefore proceeded to do so with great viciousness and cruelty. By focusing on their victimization in this process, Landes holds, some postcolonial states have wasted energy that could have been put into productive work and investment. If one could sum up Landes’s advice to these states in one sentence, it might be "Stop whining and get to work." This is particularly important, indeed hopeful, advice, he would argue, because success is not permanent. Advantages are not fixed, gains from trade are unequal, and different societies react differently to market signals. Therefore, not only is there hope for undeveloped countries, but developed countries have little cause to be complacent, because the current situation "will press hard" on them.
The thrust of studies like Landes’s is to identify those distinctive features of European civilization that lie behind Europe’s rise to power and the creation of modernity more generally. Other historians have placed a greater emphasis on such features as liberty, individualism, and Christianity. In a review essay, the art historian Craig Clunas listed some of the less well known linkages that have been proposed between Western culture and modernity, including the propensities to think quantitatively, enjoy pornography. and consume sugar. All such proposals assume the fundamental aptness of the question: What elements of European civilization led to European success? It is a short leap from this assumption to outright triumphalism. The paradigmatic book of this school is, of course, The End of History and the Last Man. in which Francis Fukuyama argues that after the collapse of Nazism in the twentieth century, the only remaining model for human organization in the industrial and communications ages is a combination of market economics and limited, pluralist, democratic government. [br] In discussing Landes’ work, the author’s tone is ______.
选项
A、matter-of-fact
B、skeptical
C、reproachful
D、enthusiastic
答案
A
解析
在讨论Landes的著作时,作者没有夹带自己的观点,而是用Landes argues, Landes believes, Landes holds等客观引述的结构。选项A为正确答案。
转载请注明原文地址:https://tihaiku.com/zcyy/3279501.html
相关试题推荐
DavidLandes,authorofTheWealthandPovertyofNations:WhySomeAreSoR
DavidLandes,authorofTheWealthandPovertyofNations:WhySomeAreSoR
DavidLandes,authorofTheWealthandPovertyofNations:WhySomeAreSoR
DavidLandes,authorofTheWealthandPovertyofNations:WhySomeAreSoRic
DavidLandes,authorofTheWealthandPovertyofNations:WhySomeAreSoRic
[originaltext]AUnitedNationsconferencehasadoptedmeasurestospeedupgl
CriticsandsupportersoftheUnitedNationshavesometimesseenworldsapart.
CriticsandsupportersoftheUnitedNationshavesometimesseenworldsapart.
Theauthorof"CommonSense"is______andheisanA、ThomasPaine;AmericanB、Be
[originaltext]TheUnitedNationsSecretary-GeneralBanKi-moonhaswarnedtha
随机试题
Theclauseinthesentence"Thenewsthathewillcomebackistrue"isA、theadv
[originaltext]W:IheardJanewasbadlyhurtinanaccident?M:Yes.Ifonlys
Wehadaroadaccidentlastweekend,butwewere(luck)______toescapeinjury.
社会主义核心价值体系的内容是什么?
根据法国作家小仲马的同名小说改编的三幕歌剧《茶花女》是19世纪意大利著名作曲家(
患者疑为黄体功能不全,取宫内膜送病检的时间是( )。A.月经来潮24小时内
如图4为某同学设计的喷水装置,其中圆柱形容器的容积为V。,内部装置有体积为0.5
施工成本核算的对象是指在计算工程成本中,确定、归集和分配产生费用的具体对象,即产
李某因诈骗罪被判处有期徒刑2年,缓刑3年,缓刑考验期满后,司法机关查获李某在缓刑
文化的核心是()。A:道德B:宗教C:习惯D:价值观
最新回复
(
0
)