It has been challenging for most twentieth-century American policy-m

游客2024-01-11  29

问题             It has been challenging for most twentieth-century American policy-makers
       to recapture the memory of the early United States, Constitution and all, as a
       revolutionary force-to ascertain, in other words, the original motives of our
Line    founding fathers. The argument that the war was a revolution is essentially
(5)      universal among the progressives like Turner, Becker, and Jameson, who
       argue that the war was fought for, or at least caused, greater democracy in the
       colonies, and generally agree that the war was a true revolution, not simply a
       rejection of British tyranny.
           Though this may be true-wars do tend to terminate Old Orders and
(10)     ancient regimes-it is hardly a singular observation regarding the American
       Revolution. A more salient hypothesis is that the fight for greater democracy
       spawned not so much from a desire for change as an affirmation of the existing
       order. Those gaining votes and other social privileges only wished to profit from
       the existing system-these were no sans culottes beheading kings and
(15)     aristocrats as the Frenchmen did in their frenzied Terror and Englishmen who
       desired home governance, at first seeking to preserve local autonomy and
       loyalty to the King, not to Parliament.
           It was only after the initial conflict that the revolutionaries slipped into the
       position of demanding sovereignty. Classwise, those ruling in 1770 also held
(20)     power in 1790, while the Parliament, a bicameral legislature, was replaced by
       the Congress, another bicameral legislature and the King supplanted by a
       President, who could very easily have maintained his position for life. This
       nearly created a tradition that the head-of-state-for-life would be chosen without
       the benefit of heredity,  a disastrous case suffered by twentieth-century
(25)     Ugandans under Idi Amin. Furthermore, only propertied white males had
       suffrage, both before and after the war, and the end of slavery was not exactly
       accelerated by the war, though there were a few relatively minor gains for
       blacks. Meanwhile, the economic system was not altered, nor was the class
       structure, except to forbid a nobility that in any case had only a nominal
(30)     existence in the colonies before the war.
           What the colonists sought was control to which they had already been
       accustomed. Parliament was not in the colonists’ "chain of command" in 1700,
       and for the House of Commons to attempt to place itself there was seen as a loss
       to the colonists. Alteration was what they resisted, not what they sought; they
(35)     largely felt that they were resisting an invasion of their political birthright, not
       that they were breaking bold new political ground, and therefore, it would be
       very convincing to argue that the war was fought as a reactionary response, not
       as a radical one. [br] Which of the following is the most appropriate title for the passage?

选项 A、A Political Birthright: An Analysis of Revolutionary Psychology
B、The American Revolution, Its Causes and Effects
C、The Legacy of Progressive Historians: A Critical Perspective
D、Reaction or Revolution: A Re-Examination of the American Rebels’ Motives
E、Democracy In Action: The Legacy of the American Revolution

答案 D

解析
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