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
79
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
Thecomingoftherailwaysinthe1830stransformedsocietyandeconomiclifebyproviding,forfirsttime,masstransportforp
Criticismofresearchlaysasignificantfoundationforfutureinvestigativework,butwhenstudentsbegintheirownprojects,t
A、economicglobalizationB、legalprofessioninthecontextofglobalizationC、legalprofessionD、economicmattersinthecontext
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
ModernExaminationsIntheschoolsofancienttimes,themostimportantexaminationswerespoken.Usuallythestudentswere
随机试题
简析方苞《狱中杂记》的主题和写作特点。
Acollegeoruniversity’sinternationalstudentofficeisagoodplace【C1】______gettingtoknowtheschoolandthecountry.Let
下列各项中,错误的是
成人,体重60kg,烧伤,于下午4时送入医院急诊室,检查:意识清,能合作,心率100次/分,血压16.0/11.2kPa(120/84mmHg),面部、胸、腹部,两前臂、两手及两小腿和足部Ⅱ、Ⅲ度烧伤,下午5时开始静脉输液,6时入手术室、清创,晚上8时送病
下列属于《施工合同条件》(新红皮书)的适用条件的是()
失业按原因不同分为()。
会计职业道德行为规范是职业道德在会计职业行为和会计职业活动中的具体体现。()
基金管理人变更基金份额登记机构的,应当在变更前将变更方案报()备案。
2015年4月1日,甲公司签订一项承担某工程建造任务的合同,该合同为固定造价合同,合同金额为8000万元。工程自2015年5月开工,预计2017年3月完工。至2016年12月31日止累计实际发生成本6800万元。甲公司签订合同时预计合同总成本为7200万元
市场经济以市场作为资源配置的基础性手段,但它并不排斥国家对经济的宏观调控。()
最新回复
(
0
)