首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
David Landes, author of The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor, credits the world’s economics
David Landes, author of The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor, credits the world’s economics
admin
2013-04-13
28
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 economics 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 two unique aspects of Europeans culture were crucial ingredient in Europe’s economic growth.
First, 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, 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 the 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-sEuropeans have, on balance, followed those practices and therefore have prospered.
Second, 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 mom 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 Europeans 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" oil 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 Europeans 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.
In discussing Landes’s work, the author’s tone is ______.
选项
A、enthusiastic,
B、skeptical.
C、reproachful.
D、matter-of-fact.
答案
D
解析
态度题。在对Landes的作品进行介绍时,作者使用了诸如he believes,Landes adds,Landes believes, Landes argues,Landes holds等客观引述的结构,全文论述没有夹带作者自己的观点,末就Landes的观点和作品进行任何评论,因此为客观引述,故[D]为答案。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/JL4O777K
0
专业英语八级
相关试题推荐
Heisusedtoliveinthetranquilcountryside,butnowhelivesinabigcity,crowdedandnoisy.
StudentsofUnitedStateshistory,seekingtoverifythecircumstances1.______thatencouragedtheemergenceoffeministmoveme
StudentsofUnitedStateshistory,seekingtoverifythecircumstances1.______thatencouragedtheemergenceoffeministmoveme
Sinceitsfoundationin1954,theUnitedNationshaswrittenintoitsmajorcovenantstheneedtoestablishminimumagesforma
ExceptinthewestoftheSouthernAlps,theclimateinNewZealandisgenerally______.
WhenAbrahamLincolnwaselectedpresident,thesouthernstatesbrokeawayandformedanewnationcalled______.
A、Optimistic.B、Pessimistic.C、Critical.D、Suspicious.A
ThecornerstoneoftheWhiteHousewaslaidOctober13,1792,onasiteselectedbyPresidentGeorgeWashington.Plansfortheh
TheParisConferenceonJanuary18th,1919whichwasactuallyaconferenceofdivisionofcoloniesofthedefeatedcountrieswas
TheAustralianNationalDayissetonJanuary26tocommemorate
随机试题
患者出现发热恶寒,头痛,咳嗽,咽干肿痛,大便溏泻,小便清长,证属()(2009年第26题)
A.生铁落饮合小承气汤B.生铁落饮合朱砂安神丸C.二阴煎合琥珀养心丹D.温胆汤合朱砂安神丸狂病大便燥结,烦躁不安,舌苔黄燥,脉实大者,治宜选用
患者,女,32岁,诊断为贫血,如要鉴别缺铁性贫血和环形铁粒幼红细胞增多时常用
患儿,4岁。左上第一乳磨牙拔除,右上中切牙外伤全脱位早失就诊,治疗应为
其最可能的诊断为可完全排除的诊断是
关于会计法律制度和会计职业道德相互关系的下列表述中,正确的有()。
问号处应该填入的数字是:
就数字出版生存所依赖的“土壤”——网络来说,这是一个信息爆炸的时代,海量的、碎片的信息常常过于________,以致阅读者很容易产生________,使得注意力和阅读兴趣迅速________,很难真正静下心来阅读。填入画横线部分最恰当的一项是:
ThesevenbasicqualitytoolsareusedwithininthecontextofthePDCACycletosolvequality.Relatedproblems.Thesetoolsare
数据模型是用来描述数据库的结构和语义的、数据模型有概念数据模型和结构数据模型两类。E-R模型是______。
最新回复
(
0
)