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
(1)When does history begin? It is tempting to reply "In the beginning", but like many obvious answers, this soon turns out to be
(1)When does history begin? It is tempting to reply "In the beginning", but like many obvious answers, this soon turns out to be
admin
2021-08-31
55
问题
(1)When does history begin? It is tempting to reply "In the beginning", but like many obvious answers, this soon turns out to be unhelpful. As a great Swiss historian once pointed out in another connection, history is the one subject where you cannot begin at the beginning. If we want to, we can trace the chain of human descent back to the appearance of vertebrates, or even to the photosynthetic cells which lie at the start of life itself. We can go back further still, to almost unimaginable upheavals which formed this planet and even to the origins of the universe. Yet this is not "history".
(2)Commonsense helps here: history is the story of mankind, of what it has done, suffered or enjoyed. We all know that dogs and cats do not have histories, while human beings do. Even when historians write about a natural process beyond human control, such as the ups and downs of climate, or the spread of disease, they do so only because it helps us to understand why men and women have lived (and died) in some ways rather than others.
(3)This suggests that all we have to do is to identify the moment at which the first human beings step out from the shadows of the remote past. It is not quite as simple as that, though. We have to know what we are looking for first and most attempts to define humanity on the basis of observable characteristics prove in the end arbitrary and cramping, as long arguments about "apemen" and "missing links" have shown. Physiological tests help us to classify data but do not identify what is or is not human. That is a matter of a definition about which disagreement is possible. Some people have suggested that human uniqueness lies in language, yet other primates possess vocal equipment similar to our own; when noises are made with it which are signals, at what point do they become speech? Another famous definition is that man is a tool-maker, but observation has cast doubt on our uniqueness in this respect, too, long after
Dr. Johnson scoffed at Boswell for quoting it to him.
(4)What is surely and identifiably unique about the human species is not its possession of certain faculties or physical characteristics, but what it has done with them—its achievement, or history, in fact. Humanity’s unique achievement is its remarkably intense level of activity and creativity, its cumulative capacity to create change. All animals have ways of living, some complex enough to be called cultures. Human culture alone is progressive: it has been increasingly built by conscious choice and selection within it as well as by accident and natural pressure, by the accumulation of a capital of experience and knowledge which man has exploited. Human history began when the inheritance of genetics and behavior which had until then provided the only way of dominating the environment was first broken through by conscious choice. Of course, human beings have always only been able to make their history within limits. These limits are now very wide indeed, but they were once so narrow that it is impossible to identify the first step which took human evolution away from the determination of nature. We have for a long time only a blurred story, obscure both because the evidence is poor and because we cannot be sure exactly what we are looking for.
The passage is mainly about ________.
选项
A、what history is
B、the difference between human beings and animals
C、what point should be the beginning of the human history
D、how the human beings make their history
答案
A
解析
主旨题。文章白始至终都在探讨人类历史的问题,谈到它的起源,它的组成和人类创造历史的过程等,故A为正确答案。其他三个选项均是对文中谈到的细节问题的概括。故不正确。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/UntK777K
0
专业英语四级
相关试题推荐
ThePowerofBelievingthatYouCanImproveIntroduction-ThestoryinChicago—Ifstudentsdidn’t【T1】______,theygo
UnionsNearly100yearsago,America’sworkingpeoplebegantojointogether/toimprovetheirwagesandtheirworkingsitu
(1)TheannualDecembercommercialsaroundbuyingandexchanginggiftsdon’tusuallyincludeanin-depthdiscussionofthetact
(1)TheannualDecembercommercialsaroundbuyingandexchanginggiftsdon’tusuallyincludeanin-depthdiscussionofthetact
Somediseasesare______bycertainwateranimals.
Homeschoolingistheeducationofchildrenathome.Thepracticewinstheheartofsomeparents.Shouldhomeeducationreallyb
AbrahamLincolnturns200in2009,andhe’sbeginningtoshowhisage.Whenhisbirthdayarrives,onFebruary12,Congresswill
Vibrationsinthegroundareapoorlyunderstoodbutprobablywidespreadmeansofcommunicationbetweenanimals.Itseems【C1】___
Youhavetoblowyourown_______sometimes—nooneelsewilldoitforyou.
A.riskB.plausibleC.ongoingD.sumE.stronglyF.outsetG.asH.m
随机试题
事件的重复
A.PR间期延长B.QT间期延长C.两者都是D.两者都不是房室传导阻滞的心电图特征是
通过阻断M受体而解救有机磷中毒的药物是
下列一系列地基处理方法中处理湿陷性黄土较理想的是()。
设计进度计划主要是确定各设计阶段的()。
以下对财产保险和人寿保险的比较正确的是( )。
衡量受教育者道德修养水平的重要标志是()。
公安派出所民警小王、老陈接到钱某报警,到现场经过调查,了解到因钱某长期拖欠房租,房主叶某让钱某搬离,双方有一些口角,之后发生拉扯,钱某手臂上有一小处淤青,叶某出示了租房合同,钱某无异议,但提出有些条款不合理,双方请民警主持公道。下列关于民警处理警情正确的说
Wheredoestheconversationprobablytakeplace?
TheInternetprovidesanamazingforumforthefreeexchangeofideas.Giventherelativelyafewrestrictionsgoverningaccess
最新回复
(
0
)