2000年英语专八阅读真题

　　TEXT G

　　First read the following question.

　　33. The primary purpose of the passage is to ___.

　　A. discuss the impact of the internet

　　B. forecast the future roles of the bookstore

　　C. compare the publisher with the editor

　　D. evaluate the limitations of the printed page

　　Now go through TEXT G quickly and answer question 33.

　　Since the advent of television people have been prophesying the death of the book. Now the rise of the World Wide Web seems to have revived this smolderi ng controversy from the ashes. The very existence of paper copy has been brought into question once more. It might be the bookstore, rather than the book itself, that is on the br ink of extinction. Many of you will have noted tom of bookseller websites poppin g up. They provide lists of books and let you read sample chapters, reviews from other customers and interviews with authors.

　　What does all this mean? Browsing a virtual bookstore may not afford you the same dusty pleasure as browsing round a real shop, but as far as service, pr ice and convenience are concerned there is really no competition. This may chang e before long, as publishers' websites begin to offer direct access to new publ ications.

　　Perhaps it is actually the publisher who is endangered by the relentless advance of the Internet. There are a remarkable number of sites republishing tex ts online——an extensive virtual library of materials that used to be handled pri marily by publishing companies.

　　From the profusion of electronic-text sites available, it looks as if thi s virtual library is here to stay unless a proposed revision to copyright law ta kes many publications out of the public domain. However, can electronic texts st ill be considered books?

　　Then again, it might be the editor at risk, in danger of being cut out of the publishing process. The Web not only makes it possible for just about anyon e to publish whatever they like whenever they like-there are virtually no costs involved. The editors would then be the millions of Internet users. And there is little censor ship, either.

　　So possibly it is the printed page, with its many limitations, that is pe rishing as the implications of new technologies begin to be fully realized. Last year Stanford University published the equivalent of a 6,000 page Business Engl ish dictionary, online. There seem to be quite obvious benefits to housing these multi-volume reference sets on the Web. The perceived benefits for other books, such as the novel, are perhaps less obvious.

　　TEXT H

　　First read the following question.

　　34. The reviewer's attitude towards the books is ___.

　　A. ambiguous B. objective C. doubtful D. ho stile

　　Now go through TEXT H quickly and answer question 34.

　　The 1990s have witnessed a striking revival of the idea that liberal democr atic political system are the best basis for international peace. Western states men and scholars have witnessed worldwide process of democratization, and tend t o see it as a sounder basis for peace than anything we have had in the past.

　　Central to the vision of a peaceful democratic world bas been the proposit ion that liberal democracies do not fight each other; that they may and frequent ly do get into fights with illiberal states, but not with other countries that a re basically similar in their political systems. The proposition appeals to poli tical leaders and scholars as well.

　　Yet it is doubtful whether the proposition is strong enough to bear the va st weight of generalization that has been placed on it. Among the many difficult ies it poses, two stand out: first there are many possible exceptions to the rul e that democracies do not fight each other; and second, there is much uncertaint y about why democracies have, for the most part, not fought each other.

　　Liberal Peace, Liberal War: American politics and international security b y John M. Owen is an attempt to explain the twin phenomena of liberal peace (why democracies do not fight each other) and liberal war (why they fight other sta tes, sometimes with the intent of making them liberal).

　　Owen's analysis in the book strongly suggests that political leaders on a l l sides judged a given foreign country largely on the basis of its political sys tem; and this heavily influenced decisions on whether or not to wage war against it. However, be also shows that military factors, including calculations of the cost of going to war, were often influential in tipping the balance against war . In other words, democratic peace does not mean the end of power politics.

　　Owen hints at, but never addresses directly, a sinister aspect of democrat ic peace theory: its assumption that there would be peace if only everybody else was like us. This can lead only too easily to attempts to impose the favoured s ystem on benighted foreigners by force-regardless of the circumstances and sensi bilities that make the undertaking hazardous, Owen's central argument is not st r engthened by the occasional repetition nor by the remorselessly academic tone of the more theoretical chapters. However, most of the writing is succinct; the hi storical accounts are clear and to the point; and the investigation of the causa l links between liberalism and war is admirably thorough.

　　There are several grounds on which the book's thesis might be criticized. The most obvious is that some twentieth-century experience goes against the argu ment that liberal states ally with others, above all, because they perceive them as fellow liberals. In our own time, several liberal democracies have maintaine d long and close relations with autocracies. However, Owen's argument for a deg r ee of solidarity between liberal states provides at least part of the explanatio n for the continuation and even expansion of NATO in the post-Cold War era.

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