啊~一開始的好多問題也是以前不明白也沒有細(xì)思過的問題~
More importantly, if in 1770 Europeans had no significant technologies advantage over Muslims, Indians and Chinese, how did they manage in the following century to open such a gap between themselves and the rest of the world?
Why did the military-industrial-science complex blossom in Europe rather than India? When Britain leaped forward, why were France, Germany and the United States quick to follow, whereas China lagged behind? When the gap between industrial and non-industrial nations became an obvious economic and political factor, why did Russia, Italy and Austria succeed.in closing it, whereas Persia, Egypt and the Ottoman Empire failed? Afterall, technology of the first industrial wave was relatively simple. Was it so hard for Chinese or Ottomans to engineer steam engines, manufacture machine guns and lay down railroads?
我相信以下會(huì)提供一部分觀點(diǎn)~
The Chinese and Persians did not lack technological inventions such as steam engines（which could be freely copied or bought）. They lacked the values, myths, judical apparatus and socialpolitical structures that took centuries to form and mature in the West and which could not be copied and internationalised rapidly.
所以晚清時(shí)的"師夷長技以制夷"只是治標(biāo)不治本。
France and the United States quickly followed in Britain's footsteps because the French and Americans already shared the most important British myths and social structures. The Chinese and Persians could not catch up as quickly because they thought and organised their societies differently.于是晚清在之后就學(xué)習(xí)西方的政治制度咯~一系列的變革…
What potential did Europe develop in the early modern period that enabled it to dominate the late modern world? There are two complementary answers to this question: modern science and capitalism.…Europe and Europeans no longer rule the world, but science and capital are growing ever stronger.
This chapter is dedicated to the love story between Europe imperialism and modern science.
The Mentality of Conquest
Technology was an important factor in the nineteen and twentieth centuries, but in the early modern era it was of limited importance.
要有敏銳的觸覺，抓住歷史進(jìn)程的方向拇派，才能把住自己命運(yùn)或者國家命運(yùn)的脈搏碉哑。在十九二十世紀(jì)的時(shí)候我們民族依然生活在“我天朝物產(chǎn)豐富”的世界里，全然沒感知到外面的變化鸵赫，整個(gè)世界的重心變化。（作者在后面也有寫道;Yet they displayed little interest in these discoveries. They contributed to believe that the world revolved around Asia, and made no attempt to compete with the Europeans for control of America or of the new ocean lanes in the Atlantic and the Pacific.）正如當(dāng)今社會(huì)來說，馬化騰馬云李彥宏王健林喬布斯扎克伯格等等室抽，從一定格局上來說，他們都是在大家還沒有意識(shí)到認(rèn)識(shí)到事物發(fā)展的方向的時(shí)候他們就已經(jīng)嗅到了機(jī)會(huì)靡努，或者說坪圾，是創(chuàng)造出機(jī)會(huì)，然后改變了很多人甚至整個(gè)社會(huì)格局的生活方式惑朦，而不至于被這個(gè)世界改變兽泄。同理，科技在那個(gè)歷史階段的重要性漾月，即使存在很多文化的因素在里面病梢，但事實(shí)和結(jié)果擺在我們面前，再多的理由和因素也沒有意義栅屏。
The discovery of America was the foundational event of the Science Revolution. It not only taught Europeans to favor present observations over past traditions, but the desire to conquer America also obliged Europeans to search for new knowledge at breakneck speed.
Most great empires extended their control only over their immediate neighbourhood- they reached far-flung lands simply because their neighbourhood kept expanding. Thus the Roman conquered Etruria in order to defend Rome.（同現(xiàn)在很多情況一樣飘千，來自"peers"的壓力）
Modern science and modern empires were motivated by the restless feeling that perhaps something important awaited beyong the horizon- something they had better explore and master. Yet the connection between science and empire went much deeper. Not just the motivation, but also the practices of empire-builders were entangled with those of scientists. For modern Europeans, building an empire was a scientific project, while setting uo a scientific discipline ws an imperial project.
