【单选题】
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First, Landes espouses a generalized form of Max Weber’s thesis that the values of work, initiative, and investment made the difference forEurope.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, 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 the fundamental explanation of the problem posed by his hook’s subtitle: "Why SomeAre 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、
Second, and perhaps most important,Europeans were learners. They "learned rather greedily," as Joel Mokyr put it in a review of Landes’s book.Even ifEuropeans 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 rediscoveringAristotle’s Logic from theArabs and taking paper and gunpowder from theChinese via the Muslim worlD、Landes argues that a systematic resistance to learning from other cultures had become the greatest handicap of theChinese by the eighteenth century and remains the greatest handicap ofArab countries today.
Although his analysis ofEuropeans expansion is almost nonexistent, Landes does not argue thatEuropeans were beneficent bearers of civilization to a benighted worlD、Rather, he relies on his own common- sense 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 someEuropeans 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 ofEuropean civilization that lie behindEurope’s rise to power and the creation of modernity more generally. Other historians have placed a greater emphasis on such features as liberty, individualism, andChristianity. In a review essay, the art historianCraigClunas listed some of the less well known linkages that have been proposed between Western culture and modernity, including the propensities to think quantitativel
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网考网解析：
细节题。按照题目顺序及选项内容定位至第四段。首句指出：Landes does not argue that Europeans were beneficent bearers of civilization to a benighted world，[A]与此矛盾，排除。第二句指出欧洲扩张的原因：When one group is strong enough to push another around and stands to gain by it, it will do so．[B]符合文意，故为答案。第三句中的“specific cultural values enabled technological advances”表明[C]不符合文意。[D]未提及，排除。 document.getElementById("warp").style.display="none"; document.getElementById("content").style.display="block"; 查看试题解析出处>>
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