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 economic a
David Landes, author of The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor, credits the world’s economic a
admin
2011-02-11
33
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 economic 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 three unique aspects of European culture were crucial ingredients in Europe’s economic growth.
First, science developed as an autonomous method of intellectual inquiry that successfully disengaged itself from the social constraints of organized religion and from the political constraints of centralized authority. Though Europe lacked a political center, its scholars benefited from the use of a single vehicle of communication: Latin. This common tongue facilitated an adversarial discourse in which new ideas about the physical world could be tested, demonstrated, and then accepted across the continent and eventually across the world.
Second, 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, [and] 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 his 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—Europeans have, on balance, followed those practices and therefore have prospered.
Third, 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 most 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 European 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" on 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 European 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 Fuknyama 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.
The cultural elements identified by Landes ______ those identified by other historians.
选项
A、subsume
B、contradict
C、glorify
D、complicate
答案
A
解析
细节归纳题。根据文章第五段,Landes等学者的研究目标是要确定欧洲文明中的哪些普遍性因素使欧洲得以强大和现代化,而其他学者所列举的是一些更具体的因素。因此A为正确答案。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/pLYO777K
0
专业英语八级
相关试题推荐
Criticismofresearchlaysasignificantfoundationforfutureinvestigativework,butwhenstudentsbegintheirownprojects,t
Peoplearemovingtocitiesindroves.In1950,two-thirdsoftheworld’spopulationlivedinthecountryside.NewYorkwasthe
A、economicglobalizationB、legalprofessioninthecontextofglobalizationC、legalprofessionD、economicmattersinthecontext
HumanitiesDisciplinesInmanypeople’seyes,thehumanitiesdisciplinesseemtobedyingout.However,actually,students
HumanitiesDisciplinesInmanypeople’seyes,thehumanitiesdisciplinesseemtobedyingout.However,actually,students
HumanitiesDisciplinesInmanypeople’seyes,thehumanitiesdisciplinesseemtobedyingout.However,actually,students
Youaskmewhatispoverty?Listentome.HereIam,dirty,smellyandwithno"proper"underwearonandwiththestenchofmyr
Youaskmewhatispoverty?Listentome.HereIam,dirty,smellyandwithno"proper"underwearonandwiththestenchofmyr
ModernExaminationsIntheschoolsofancienttimes,themostimportantexaminationswerespoken.Usuallythestudentswere
随机试题
易引起电光性眼炎这种职业病的是()
【背景资料】A施工单位于2009年5月承接某科研单位办公楼机电安装项目,合同约定保修期为一年。工程内容包括:给排水、电气、消防、通风空调、建筑智能系统。其中:办公楼实验中心采用一组(5台)模块式水冷机组作为冷热源,计算机中心采用10%余热回收水冷
A公司投标该工程,投标时钢筋价格为4500元/t,合同约定市场价在投标价上下浮动10%内不予调整;上下浮动超过10%时,对超出部分按月进行调整。市场价以当地造价信息中心公布的价格为准。该公司现有的钻孔机械为回旋钻机、冲击钻机、长螺旋杆钻机各若干台提供本工程
通常可疑类贷款的关键特征表现为()。
在按当月发放工资进行费用分配情况下,如果企业期末“应付工资”账户出现贷方余额时,它对当期生产成本的影响是()。
某公司上年的每股收益为4元,将净利润的30%作为股利支付,预计从今年开始净利润和股利长期保持6%的增长率,该公司的β值为1.2。若同期无风险报酬率为5%,市场平均报酬率为10%,采用市盈率模型计算的公司股票价值为()元。
甲上市公司(以下简称“甲公司”)经批准于2×16年1月1日以5010万元的价格(不考虑相关税费)发行面值总额为5000万元的可转换公司债券,筹集资金专门用于某工程项目。(1)该可转换公司债券期限为3年,票面年利率为5%,实际年利率为6%。自2×17年起,
()是亚洲重要的湿地自然保护区,有“中国鹤湖”之称。
设函数y(x)具有二阶导数,且曲线l:y=y(x)与直线y=x相切于原点,记α为曲线l在点(x,y)处切线的倾角,若,求y(x)的表达式。
Whatdoesthemanwanttoorder?
最新回复
(
0
)