2. 外语
  3. EFFECTS OF THE COMMERCIAL REVOLUTION (1) In the third and the second millennia B.C., long-distance trade supposedly had the

EFFECTS OF THE COMMERCIAL REVOLUTION (1) In the third and the second millennia B.C., long-distance trade supposedly had the

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问题                                         EFFECTS OF THE COMMERCIAL REVOLUTION
    (1) In the third and the second millennia B.C., long-distance trade supposedly had the character of an expedition. By the start of the last millennium B.C., however, a new approach to engaging in such trade emerged. Based on the principle of colonization, it was pioneered by the Phoenicians and Greeks, who established colonies along the Mediterranean Sea. The new approach to long-distance trade, known as the commercial revolution, led to changes in a number of political and economic patterns.
    (2) For the first time, the planting of colonies in distant lands became possible. The Phoenician settlements in the central and western Mediterranean, such as Carthage, and the slightly later establishment of Greek colonies are early examples, while the settlement of south Arabians in Eritrea around the middle of the last millennium marks the subsequent spread of this sort of commercial consequence to the Horn of Africa. In the third or second millennia B.C., a state such as Egypt might colonize areas outside its heartland, such as Nubia. But this colonization comprised military outposts and ethnic settlements that were planted to hold the contiguous territories of a land empire, not distant localities far separated from the home country.
    (3) [A] The commercial revolution constructed the economic basis as well for a new kind of town or city, an center that above all serviced trade and was home to the crafts and occupational specializations that went along with commercial development. [B] The urban locations of earlier times commonly drew trade simply because their populations had included a privileged elite of potential consumers. [C] Such towns had arisen in the first place as political and religious centers of the society; they attracted population because power and influence resides there and access to position and wealth could be gained through service to the royal or priestly leadership. [D]
    (4) Wherever the effects of the commercial revolution penetrated over the last millennium B.C., kings and emperors increasingly lost their ability to treat trade as a royalty sponsored activity, intended to preserve the commodities of trade as the privileges of immemorial power and position. Instead, their policies shifted toward controlling geographical accessibility to the products of commerce and to ensuring security and other conditions that attracted and enhanced the movement of goods. No longer could kings rely on agriculturally supported and religiously based claims to an ability to protect their lands and people; now they also had to overtly support the material prosperity of their people compared to other societies. And rather than exerting a monopoly over prestige commodities, as Egyptian kings of the third and second millennia had, and redistributing such commodities in ways designed to reinforce the allegiance of their subjects and enhance the awesomeness of their position, rulers turned to the taxation of trade and to the creation and control of currency, more and more relying on duties and other revenues to support the apparatus of the state. It was no historical accident that the first metal coinage in the world began to be made in eighth-century Anatolia (modern Turkey) and that the use of coins rapidly spread with the expanding commercial revolution. The material bases and the legitimizations of state authority as we know them today had begun to take shape.
    (5) The commercial revolution tended also to spread a particular pattern of exchange. The early commercial centers of the Mediterranean most characteristically offered manufactured goods—purple dye, metal goods, wine, olive oil, and so forth—for the raw materials or the partially processed natural products of other regions. As the commercial revolution spread, this kind of exchange tended to spread with it, with the recently added areas of commerce providing new kinds of raw materials for familiar products of the natural world, and the longer established commercial centers—which might themselves have lain at the margins of this transformation—producing, or acting as the intermediaries in the transmission of manufactured commodities. India, for instance, had developed by the turn of the era into a major exporter of its own cotton textiles, as well as naturally occurring materials, such as gems of various kinds, and at the same time its merchants were the intermediaries of the silk trade.
In paragraph 2, why does the author mention the colonization of Nubia by the Egyptians?
选项 A、To prove that colonization was first carried out by the military
B、To indicate that Egypt was a major military power in the third and second millennia B.C.
C、To illustrate how large the geographic area of colonization had become over several millennia
D、To show that the purpose of colonization during the third and second millennia B.C. differed from that of the last millennium B.C.
答案D
解析 本题为修辞目的题，问在第2段中，作者为何提到埃及人对努比亚的殖民统治。埃及人对努比亚的殖民统治是在公元前第三个千年或公元前第二个千年的时候，即商业革命之前，从第2段末句可知，其建立殖民统治的目的与商业革命时期的那些国家建立殖民统治的目的不同：维护帝国对“毗邻领土”，而不是 “远离帝国的遥远地区”的控制，故选D项“为了表明公元前第三个千年和公元前第二个千年时的殖民目的与公元前最后一个千年的不同”。A项“为了证明殖民化首先是由军队贯彻执行的”是利用第2段最后一句的military outposts设置的干扰项。文中并未明确说明殖民化是由军队贯彻执行的，故A项错误。B项“为了表明埃及在公元前第三个千年和公元前第二个千年时是一个主要的军事强国”，原文并未描述当时埃及的军事实力有多雄厚，如士兵人数、武器数量等，B项内容不能得到体现。C项“为了说明几千年来，(埃及的)殖民化的地理面积有多大”，从第2段最后一句可知，作者的修辞目的并不是想突出说明殖民化的地理面积的大小，而是殖民化的目的。
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