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.
According to paragraph 3, before the emergence of the commercial revolution, trade________.
选项 A、enabled craftspeople and occupational specialists to gain power and influence in society
B、centered on the ruling elite and those groups closely associated with them
C、was primarily conducted by people serving the royal and religious leadership
D、was a major reason why urban centers were established
答案B
解析 本题属于事实信息题，问根据第3段，商业革命出现之前的贸易是什么样的。第3段倒数第2句提到，早期的城市地区吸引贸易的主要原因是有作为潜在消费者的特权精英，换句话说，也就是早期贸易主要是围绕这些精英进行的，对应B项“围绕统治精英以及与他们密切相关的群体进行”。A项“使工匠和专职人员在社会上获得权力和影响力”是伴随着商业革命出现的变化，不符合题目所问。C项“主要通过人们服务王室和祭司这些统治阶层来进行”，第3段最后一句提到，人们通过给王室或祭司这些统治阶层服务来获得地位和财富，这是用于解释这些早期城镇能够吸引人的原因：人们能通过给统治阶层服务获得地位和财富，但并未清楚说明这种服务否就是指贸易，也未清楚说明这种形式是否就是当时贸易进行的主要方式，故不选C项。D项“是城市中心得以建立的主要原因”，第3段最后一句提到，这些城镇最初是作为社会的政治和宗教中心而发展起来的，而不是因为贸易而发展起来的。
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