Time's mortuary

　　時代的殮房(陳繼龍 編譯)

　　Jun 1st 2006

　　From The Economist print edition

　　WHAT was the 20th century's most distinctive feature? It is a historians' parlor game[1], but there can be no definitive answer. For some, it would be getting men to the moon, discovering penicillin, splitting the atom or some other great scientific a________①. For others, it would be the fastest and most sustained period of economic growth in history. Or the end of the age of empires, which had dominated the politics and economics of the world for centuries. For Niall Ferguson, however, only this last description comes close and even then only as background. In his view, the century's most distinctive feature was violence: the slaughter, and not only in war, of millions upon millions of people. His new book seeks to describe and, as far as possible, explain why this happened.

　　二十世紀最鮮明的特征是什么?這是一個歷史學家們討論的問題，但可能誰也無法準確回答。有的人認為是人類登月、發現青霉素、原子裂解以及其它一些偉大的科學成就，而有的人則認為是史上經濟增長速度最快、最穩定的時期，也有人認為是統治世界政治經濟數百年的帝國時代的終結。然而，對于尼爾 弗格森而言，只有最后一種說法才是最貼切的，也只有這一點才是值得參考的時代背景。在他看來，二十世紀最鮮明的特征就是暴力——不計其數的人慘遭屠戮，而且不僅僅因為戰爭。他新近出版的著作就是要尋求記述并盡可能闡明這一切發生的原因。