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
No revolutions in technology have as visibly marked the human condition as those in transport. Moving goods and people, they hav
No revolutions in technology have as visibly marked the human condition as those in transport. Moving goods and people, they hav
admin
2015-04-18
26
问题
No revolutions in technology have as visibly marked the human condition as those in transport. Moving goods and people, they have opened continents, transformed living standards, spread diseases, fashions and folk around the world. Yet technologies to transport ideas and information across long distances have arguably achieved even more they have spread knowledge, the basis of economic growth.
The most basic of all these, the written word, was already ancient by 1000. By then China had, in basic form, the printing press, using carved woodblocks. But the key to its future, movable metal type, was four centuries away. The Chinese were hampered by their thousands of ideograms. Even so, they quite soon invented the primitive movable type, made of clay, and by the 13th century they had the movable wooden type. But the real secret was the use of an easily cast metal.
When it came, Europe-aided by simple Western alphabets-leapt forward with it. One reason why Asia’ s civilizations, in 1000 far ahead of Europe’ s, then fell behind was that they lacked the technology to reproduce and diffuse ideas. On Johannes Gutenberg’ s invention in the 1440s were built not just the Reformation and the Enlightenment, but Europe’ s agricultural and industrial revolutions too.
Yet information technology on its own would not have got far. Literally: better transport technology too was needed. That was not lacking, but here the big change came much later; it was railways and steamships that first allowed the speedy, widespread
dissemination
of news and ideas o-ver long distances. And both technologies in turn required people and organizations to develop their use. They got them; for individual communication, the postal service; for wider publics, the publishing industry.
Throughout the 19th century, the postal service formed the bedrock of national and international communications. Crucial to its growth had been the introduction of the stamp, combined with a low price, and payment by the sender. Britain put all three of these ideas into effect in 1840.
By then, the world’ s mail was taking off. It changed the world. Merchants in America’ s eastern cities used it to gather information, enraging far-off cotton growers and farmers, who found that New Yorkers knew more about crop prices than they did. In the American debate about slavery, it offered abolitionists a low-cost way to spread their views, just as later technologies have cut the cost and widened the scope of political lobbying. The post helped too to integrate the American nation, tying the newly opened west to the settled east.
Everywhere,
its development
drove and was driven by those of transport. In Britain, travelers rode by mail coach to posting inns. In America, the post subsidized road-building. Indeed, argues Dan Schiller, a professor of communications at the University of California, it was the connection between the post, transport and national integration that ensured that the mail remained a public enterprise even in the United States, its first and only government-ran communications medium, and until at least the 1870s, the biggest organization in the land.
The change
has not only been one of speed and distance, though, but of audience. About 200 years ago, a man’ s words could reach no further than his voice, not just in range but in whom they reached. But, for some purposes, efficient communication is mass communication, regular, cheap, quick and reliable. When it became possible, it transformed the world.
In the United States, the postal service belongs to______.
选项
A、a private company
B、the government
C、road-building enterprises
D、national integration
答案
B
解析
根据文章第七段中的“the mail remained a public enterprise even in the UnitedStates,its first and only government-ran communications medium”可知,在美国,邮电业是有政府经营的。所以,答案是B。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/qTwO777K
本试题收录于:
CATTI三级笔译综合能力题库翻译专业资格(CATTI)分类
0
CATTI三级笔译综合能力
翻译专业资格(CATTI)
相关试题推荐
Fromthislecture,whatcanbeinferredabouttherelationshipbetweennurtureandlanguageacquisition?
Whatcanbeinferredabouttheimpactofdigitaltechnologyonphotojournalism?
A、Hewilllendthewomanmoneytobuyacomputer.B、Thewomanshouldwaitawhilebeforebuyingacomputer.C、Thewomanshouldfi
StudyHabitsIncollegeinanyclass,youwillfindwidelydifferenttypesofpeople,notonlyinpersonalitybutalsoinsc
Stressusuallyaffectssomepartsofthebodysuchasstomach,heart,skin,headandback.What’sworseisthatitalwayscauses
PatentsandInventionsWhenaninventionismade,theinventorhasthreepossiblecoursesofactionopentohim:first,hecang
Observationsofcetaceansinthewildhaveprovidedsomeinsightsontheirlearningabilities.Severalbottlenosedolphinsoffw
"PhysicalandChemicalPropertiesandChanges"Sugar,water,andaluminumaredifferentsubstances.Eachsubstancehasspecif
Someeconomistscallforareturntothegoldstandard,______othersurgeamorebroadlybasedstandard.
NeitherLorillardnortheresearcherswhostudiedtheworkersintheeastpartofthecountryhasbeenawareofanyresearchon
随机试题
汇率
设,则∫01f(x)dx=()
患者林某,女,49岁。平素经常感冒,现症见鼻塞流涕、头痛无汗,肢体倦怠乏力,咳嗽咯痰无力,舌质淡,苔薄白,脉浮,治宜选方是
2012年,潘桂花、李大响老夫妇处置房产时,发现房产证产权人由潘桂花变成其子李能。原来,早在七年前李能就利用其母不识字骗其母签订合同,将房屋作价过户到自己名下。二老怒将李能诉至法院。法院查明,潘桂花因精神障碍,被鉴定为限制民事行为能力人。据此,法院认定该合
下列说法中不正确的为()。
为防止行政许可过度干预经济和社会生活,《行政许可法》第十三条规定了可以不设定行政许可的事项,下列选项中,属于可以不设定行政许可事项的有()。
A企业为某市国家重点扶持的高新技术企业,2013年度企业的生产经营情况如下:(1)取得销售收入6000万元,出租固定资产取得租金120万元;(2)销售成本4000万元,税务机关核定的增值税700万元,营业税金及附加76.6万元;(3)销售
自由联想是()。
班主任的基本任务是教育学生努力学习,提高学生的学习成绩。
Whatdoesthehamburgersayaboutourmodemfoodeconomy?Alot,actually.OverthepastseveralyearsWaldoJaquithintendedto
最新回复
(
0
)