Chapter11 Imperial Visions

It's not our kind of story. We like to see underdogs win. But there is no.justic in history. Most past culture have sooner or later fallen prey to the armies of some ruthless empire, which have consigned them to oblivion. Empire, too, ultimately fall, but they tend to leave behind rich and enduring legacies. Almost all people in the twenty-first century are the offspring if one empire or another.

underdog; a person, team, country etc. that is thought to be in a weaker position than others and therefor not likely to be successful, win a competition.处于劣势的（团队或国家等），弱者，比赛前不被看好者。

It should be stressed that an empire is defined solely by its cultural diversity and flexible borders, rather than by its origins, its form of government, its territorial extent, or the size of its population

同义替换stress; repeat, underline, underscore,  accent, belabor, feature, headline, italicize, spot, spotlight, dwell on, harp on, lay emphasis on, make emphatic ,play up, point up, rub in

Building and maintaining an empire usually required the vicious slaughter of large populations and the brutal oppression of everyone who was left. The standard imperial toolkit included wars, enslavement, deportation and genocide.

communism empire大概也是有过这样一段历程，并不是初高中教科书里描述的那么伟大无私，知道的太少，但不知道并不代表不存在，是不是我们教育里有一种统一普罗大众的思想和思维的目的，所有的人都在自己制造的myths 和images里“努力奋斗”亦或在物欲或虚无的世界里挣扎，无理由地信仰好像很多事物的存在就是理所当然，但是，我们好像又需要这样没来由的信仰更需要生活在自己网织的myths和images里，很奇怪…不断被灌输红军精神革命精神的我们这一代，大多数的我们，仅仅只接受这个empire光明的一面，也只需要接受它光明的一面吧…

and said that"to plunder, slaughter and robbery they give the lying name of empire; they make a desert and call it peace"

Even though it has often emphasised racial and culture differences between rulers and ruled, it has still recognised the basic unity of the entire world, the existence of a single set of principles governing all places and times, and the mutual responsibilities of all human beings. Humankind is seen as a large family; the privileges of the parents go hand in hand with responsibility for the welfare of the children.

这让我想起那句“天地与我同根，万物与我一体”，心存善念，以这样的态度去对待万事万物，应该很棒吧。

We can understand the docolonisation process of the last few decades in a similar way. During the modern era Europeans conquered much of the globe under the guise of spreading a superior Western culture. They were so successful that billions of people gradually adopted significant parts of that culture. Indian, Africans, Arabs, Chinese and Maoris learned French, English and Spanish. They began to believe in human rights and the principle of self-determination, and they adopted Western ideologies such as liberalism, capitalism, Communism, feminism and nationalism.

跳出内容来看，历史总是惊人的相似，看来读历史也是很有必要性啊，培根也说; Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtile; natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend.

回到文本本身，这样ideologies的渗透也是“随风潜入夜，润物细无声”，利弊俱存，关键是看个人以一个什么样的历史角度来看待。经作者这么一提醒，确实意识到这样的状态和现象，那么，作为个人而言，无论是接受什么内容，有自己的逻辑与思辨思维是至关重要也是不可或缺的。扯开了，那么问题来了，怎么培养这种思维又是一个有待解决的问题…

It is tempting to divide history neatly into good guys and bad guys, with all empires among the bad guys. For the vast majority of empires were founded on blood, and maintained their power through oppression and war. Yet most of today's cultures are based on imperial legacies. If empires are by definition bad, what does that say about us?

啊哈~what does that say about us?

Nobody really knows how to solve this thorny question of cultural inheritance. Whatever path we take, the first step is to acknowledge the complexity of the dilemma and to accept that simplistically dividing the past into good guys and bad guys leads nowhere. Unless, of course, we are willing to admit that we usually follow the lead of the bad guys.

关于这个问题，正如作者前面所说;If an extreme Hindu nationalist were to destroy all the buildings left by the British conquerors, such as Mumbai's main train station, what about the structures left by India's Muslim conquerors, such as the TajMahal? 所以作者得出一个这样的结论，个人表示很喜欢~