经济学人下载: 未上锁的世界(2)

Singapore, for instance, grew exponentially, and played a central role in the industrialisation of tin and rubber production in its maritime hinterland of Malaysia. New Orleans rose in importance with the Mississippi riverboat steamer, only to decline as railway connections to Baltimore and New York changed the dynamics of American trade once more. Trieste enjoyed a brief heyday as the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s main seaport, before collapsing abruptly into romantic obscurity after 1918. 

例如，新加坡以指数形式增长，并在其海洋腹地马来西亚的锡和橡胶生产工业化中发挥了核心作用。随着密西西比河蒸汽轮船的出现，新奥尔良的重要性开始上升，但随着与巴尔的摩和纽约的铁路连接再次改变了美国贸易的动态，新奥尔良的重要性也随之下降。的里雅斯特曾是奥匈帝国的主要海港，在1918年之后突然陷入莫名其妙的无名之中。

Mr Darwin takes globalisation to mean primarily “economic connectedness between different parts of the world”. That is a reasonable but limited definition, missing the ascent in the 19th century of ideologies such as nationalism and socialism that purported to explain social relations around the world. Rising sciences such as geology and palaeontology had a similarly broad scope. “Unlocking” the world, meanwhile, is a vivid metaphor, but it implies a smooth, even inevitable process. In reality the world’s doors were not just unlocked, but often kicked down. Mr Darwin knows this, and stresses the influence of geopolitics and imperialism, not just free trade as an abstract concept. But he might have depicted the footprints more graphically. 

达尔文认为全球化主要是指“世界不同地区之间的经济联系”。这是一个合理但有局限性的定义，遗漏了19世纪提出的上升概念，即旨在解释世界各地社会关系的民族主义和社会主义等意识形态。新兴的科学，如地质学和古生物学也有同样广泛的研究范围。“解锁”世界，是一个生动的比喻的同时，也意味着一个平稳，甚至不可避免的过程。事实上，世界的大门不仅没有上锁，而且经常被踢开。达尔文知道这一点，他强调了地缘政治和帝国主义的影响，而不仅仅是把自由贸易作为一个抽象概念。但他可能更生动地描绘了通往全球化的足迹。

Still, his book is an enjoyable synthesis of a large body of scholarship. He closes by remarking that today’s globalisation is not simply a bigger, faster version of what happened in the steam age. As in the early modern period, Asia is once again the workshop of the world. He wonders if there is another parallel, however. In 1914 the European-dominated global economic system seemed irresistible. Then war intervened. Will a systemic crisis break the current cycle of globalisation, too? 

不过，他的书生动有趣，综合了大量的学术研究。他最后说，如今的全球化不仅仅是蒸汽时代全球化的一个规模更大、更快的版本。与近代早期一样，亚洲再次成为世界工厂。然而，他想知道是否还有另一种类似的走向。1914年，欧洲主导的全球经济体系似乎势不可挡。然后因战争而受阻。那一场系统性的危机是否也会打破当前的全球化循环？