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  3. Paul Johnson’s A History Of The American People is what we have come to expect from this productive writer—clear, colorful narra

Paul Johnson’s A History Of The American People is what we have come to expect from this productive writer—clear, colorful narra

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问题     Paul Johnson’s A History Of The American People is what we have come to expect from this productive writer—clear, colorful narrative, vivid character sketches, marvelous research, sweeping, confident statements, and an insistent conservative viewpoint which tempts him into serious omissions. He will not conceal his opinions, he tells us. Good. Then we can judge his history free of pretences to objectivity—his or ours.
    Almost at start, we notice something interesting: Johnson passes quickly over a defining moment in American history—the Columbus story—important because it is the first lesson every American schoolchild learns. How you treat that story—what you choose to tell of it—signals your view of the longer American experience, reaching to our time.
    In school textbooks, Columbus has always been presented as a hero. Only recently has a new set of facts—always available but ignored—begun to get into public attention: that Columbus, on landing, and desperate for gold, encountered native Americans who were peaceful and generous (by his own admission)and tortured them, kidnapped them, enslaved them, murdered them. Johnson, who goes into much detail about other matters (like Ronald Reagan’s jokes)is silent on this. Among his numerous references there is none to Bartolome de las Casas, an eyewitness, who described in detail the horrifying evils committed by Columbus and his fellowmen against the Indians , which resulted in the native population of Hispaniola being wiped out—genocide is an appropriate term—by the year 1550.
    I suggest this is not an innocent omission. Johnson wants us to look positively on the history of the United States. Yes, he says, there were "severe wrongs" committed in "the dispossession of a native people" and in the institution of slavery. But has the US, he asks at the start of his book, "made up for its organic sins"? His whole book suggests that it has, and that in doing so it has become (he says at the end)"a human achievement without parallel... the first, best hope for the human race".
    Since Johnson has decided that the US is " the first, best hope for the human race" , he has shaped its history accordingly. If we prefer to see that history as a complex and unfinished struggle of Americans for justice, against militarism, for economic, racial and sexual equality, we are badly served by a flattering admiration of those in power, pretending to be a history of "the people".
The first paragraph shows that the author’s opinion of the book A History Of The American People is
选项 A、critical.
B、objective.
C、defensive.
D、admiring.
答案B
解析 该题为细节题。根据第一段最后一句“Then we can judge his history free of pretences to objectivity--his or ours．”可知，如此，我们便可判断他的抑或是我们的历史描述脱离了伪装，而变得非常客观。由此可以看出《美国人民的历史》一书的作者保罗-约翰逊对待历史的观点是客观的，故选B。
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