Ostentatious – показной Uniqueness – уникальность
social fluidity – соц. Подвижность Avoidance –
уклонение extreme – крайность
Isolation – изоляция invader –
захватчик Continuity – непрерывность
proceed – продолжать Turmoil –
беспорядок
private property – частная собственность
Environmental protection
The 20th century began slowly, to the ticking of grandfather clocks and the
stately rhythms of progress. Thanks to science, industry and moral
philosophy, mankind's steps had at last been guided up the right path. The
century of steam was about to give way to the century of oil and
electricity. Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, only 41 years old in
1900, proposed a scientific basis for the notion that progress was gradual
but inevitable, determined by natural law.
And everybody thought that the development would continue in the small
steps that had marked the progress of the 19th century. Inventions like the
railroad or the telegraph or the typewriter had enabled people to get on
with their ordinary lives a little more conveniently. No one could have
guessed then that, in the century just beginning, new ideas would burst
upon the world with a force and frequency that would turn this stately
march of progress into a long distance, free-for-all sprint. Thrust into
this race, the children of the 20th century would witness more change in
their daily existence and environment than anyone else who had ever walked
the planet.
This high-velocity attack of new ideas and technologies seemed to ratify
older dreams of a perfectible life on earth, of an existence in which the
shocks of nature had been tamed. But the unleashing of unparalleled
progress was also accompanied by something quite different: a massive
regression toward savagery. If technology endowed humans with Promethean
aspirations and powers, it also gave them the means to exterminate one
another. Assassinations in Sarajevo in 1914 lit a spark that set off an
unprecedented explosion of destruction and death. The Great War did more
than devastate a generation of Europeans. It set the tone - the political,
moral and intellectual temper - for much that followed.
Before long the Great War received a new name - World War I. The roaring
1920s and the Depression years of the 1930s proved to be merely a prelude
to World War II. Largely hidden during that war was an awful truth that
called into question progress and the notion of human nature itself.
But civilization was not crushed by the two great wars, and the ruins
provided the stimulus to build a way of life again. To a degree previously
unheard of and perhaps unimaginable, the citizens of the 20th century felt
free to reinvent themselves. In that task They were assisted by two
profound developments–psychoanalysis and the Bomb.
Vocabulary
stately - величественный, величавый
thrust - толчок
high-velocity - большая скорость
savagery - варварство
aspiration - стремление
exterminate - уничтожать
assassination - убийство политического или общественного деятеля spark
- искра
explosion - взрыв
destruction - разрушение, уничтожение
devastate - опустошить
roaring - бурный
Depression - кризис 1929-32 гг.
Outstanding people
Edward VI took the English throne in 1461. When he unexpectedly died in
1483, his brother Richard was one of the most powerful men in the kingdom.
Edward IV left two little sons, Edward, Prince of Wales, age twelve, and
Richard, Duke of York, age nine. Their uncle Richard made a conspiracy to
seize the Princes. He brought them to London and locked away in the Tower,
and started to move toward usurpation. He alleged that the marriage of his
dead brother, Edward IV, was invalid because Edward had previously promised
to marry another woman. As a result, the little princes were declared
bastards, and young Edward V had no right to the throne of England. To
assure his own security, Richard is believed to have ordered to murder the
little princes in the Tower. He became King Richard III.
Richard had the most obvious reasons for wanting the young princes dead. He
lived through a civil war that taught him that powerful men were always
ready to rally around a standard revolt. If such a flag could be raised for
a prince of the royal blood to restore him to a rightful throne, noblemen
with great lands, great debts, and empty wallets might readily take arms,
looking for the main chance in the change of kings. Richard never felt
secure on his throne; his swift, lawless, and lethal moves against those
who threatened him showed that he was capable of murder if by murder he
could rid himself of the mortal danger. And as long as the little princes
remained alive the danger was always present. In the summer of 1483, the
little princes disappeared forever; that much is certain.
Richard III was killed in the battle on 22 August 1485. Henry Tudor, earl
of Richmond, now King Henry VII by right of conquest and some other
hereditary claims, felt he needed to justify his own actions at the battle
of Bosworth. He issued a royal proclamation, dated the day before the
battle, declaring himself the rightful king of England and condemning
Richard as the rebellious subject.
In 1674 two small skeletons were found in a wooden box buried ten feet
under a small staircase that workmen were removing from the White Tower.
They were thought to be the bones of the little princes. King Charles II
had his own reasons for being offended at the murder of kings, so he placed
these bones in the chapel of Henry VII in Westminster Abbey.
Vocabulary
usurpation - узурпация, незаконный захват
allege - утверждать, заявлять (голословно)
invalid - не имеющий законной силы
bastard - внебрачный ребенок
security - безопасность
rally – сплотиться
standard - знамя, флаг
murder - убийство
disappear - исчезнуть
it-rightful - законный
condemn - осуждать
Youth and unemployment
In the year 1000, Western Europe was just emerging from the long depression
commonly known as the Dark Ages. Shortly before the beginning of the
millennium, the Holy Roman Emperor Otto III moved his capital and court
back to the Eternal City. But what little grandeur Rome still possessed
paled by comparison with the splendors of 'the new Rome, Constantinople,
the capital of the Byzantine empire. Byzantium was one of three centers of
wealth and power in the known world of the 11th century, India and China
were the others. There were sophisticated cultures elsewhere, notably the
Mayans of Mexico, but they were virtually out of touch with other
civilizations — thus lacking an essential condition for being considered
part of world history.
Little of Europe's coming dynamism was apparent in the year JOOO, although
there were signs that the Continent was getting richer. Wider use of plows
had made farming more efficient. The planting of new crops, notably beans
and peas, added variety to Europe's diet Windmills and watermills provided
fresh sources of power. Villages that were to become towns and eventually
cities grew up around trading markets. Yet the modern nation-state, with
its centralized bureaucracies and armies under unified command came into
being in the 15th century. For most of the Middle Ages, Roman Catholicism
was Europe's unifying force. Benedictine abbeys had preserved what
fragments of ancient learning the Continent possessed. Cistercian monks had
cleared the land and pioneered in agricultural experimentation. Ambitious
popes competed with equally ambitious kings to determine whether the
spiritual realm would hold power over the tea or vice versa. Symbolic of
the church's power were great Gothic cathedrals of Europe: construction of
Reims began 13th century, and Charters—the most glorious of all such
edifices—was consecrated in 1260.
By the 20th century the ingenuity, coupled with an aggressive wanderlust,
brought Europeans and their culture to the ends earth. By the year 1914,
eighty four per cent of the world' surface, apart from the polar regions,
was under the influence European civilization. The hegemony of European
civilization was based on the successful application of new knowledge to a
problems and conquering nature, and much of that success based on
circumstance and ingenuity.
Vocabulary
emerge - выходить
millennium – тысячелетие
asceticism - аскетизм
sophisticated - сложный
bureaucracies - чиновники apparent -
явный
watermill - водяная мельница ambitious -
честолюбивый
ingenuity - изобретательность wanderlust
- страсть к путешествиям
surface - поверхность
conquer - завоевать
assertion - утверждение
accomplishment - достижение
grandeur - великолепие, пышность, грозность
Mass media
The problem between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland started a
long time ago. It is more political than religious. For centuries the
English had tried to gain control of Ireland. Until the 16-th century,
England controlled only a small area of Ireland around Dublin. English
rulers, including King Henry VIII (1491-1547), Queen Elizabeth I (153-1603)
and Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658) gradually conquered the whole of Ireland.
The last area to resist the province in Ulster, in the north of Ireland,
but in the Irish were defeated.
