丘吉尔《英语国家史略》英文Preface
Preface
It is nearly 20years ago that I made the arrangements which resulted in this book. At the outbreak of the war about a million words were duly delivered. Of course, there was still much to be done in proof reading when I went to the Admiralty on September 3.1939. All this was set aside. During 6 years of war, and an even longer period in which I was occupied with my war memoirs, the book slumbered peacefully. It is only now when things have quietened down that I present to the public A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING PEOPLES.
If there was need for it before, that has certainly not passed away. For the second time in the present century the British Empire and the United States have stood together facing the perils of war on the largest scale known among men, and since the cannons ceased to fire and the bombs to burst we have become more conscious of our common duty to the human race. Language, law, and the processes by which we have come into being already afforded a unique foundation for drawing together and portraying a concerted task. I thought when I began that such a unity might well notably influence the destiny of the world. Certainly I do not feel that the need for this has diminished in any way in the twenty years that have passed.
On the contrary, the theme of the work has grown in strength and reality, and human thought is broadened. Vast numbers of people on both sides of
the Atlantic and throughout the British Commenwealth of Nations have felt a sense of brotherhood. A new generation is at hand. Many practical steps have been taken which carry us far. Thinking primarily of the English-speaking peoples in no way implies any sense of restriction. It does not mean canalizing the development of world affairs, nor does it prevent the erection of structures like United Europe or other similar groupings which may all find their place in the world organization we have set on foot. It rather helps to invest them with life and truth. There is a growing feeling that the English-speaking peoples might point a finger showing the way if things went right, and could of course defend themselves, so far as any of us have the power, if things went wrong. This book does not seek to rival the works of professional historians. It aims rather to present a personal view on the processes whereby English-speaking peoples throughout the world have achieved their distinctive position and character. I write about the things in our past that appear significant to me and I do so as one not without some experience of historical and violent events in our own time. I use the term “English-speaking peoples” because there is no other that applies both to the inhabitants of the British Isles and to those independent nations who derive their beginnings, their speech, and many
of their institutions from England, and who now preserve, nourish, and develop them in their own ways.
This first volume traces the history of the English-speaking peoples from the earliest times to the eve of the European discovery of the New World. It concludes upon the field of Bosworth, the last battle of the tumultuous English Middle Ages. The year is 1485, and a new dynasty has just mounted the English throne. Seven years later Columbus landed in the Americas, and from this date, 1492, a new era in the history of mankind takes its beginning.
Our story centers in an island, not widely sundered from the continent, and so tilted that its mountains lie all to the west and north, while south and east is a gently undulating landscape of wooded valley, open downs, and slow rivers. It is very accessible to the invader, whether he comes in peace or war, as pirate or merchant, conqueror or missionary. Those who Dwelt there are not insensitive to any shift of power, any change of faith, or even fashion on the mainland, but they give to every practice, every doctrine that comes to it from abroad its own peculiar turn and imprint. A province of the Roman Empire, cut off and left to sink or swim in the great convulsion of the Dark Ages; reunited to Christendom, and almost torn away from it once more by the heathen Dane; victorious, united, but exhausted, yielding, almost without resistance, to the Norman Conqueror; submerged, it might seem, within the august framework of Catholic feudalism, was yet capable of reappearing with an individuality of its own.
丘吉尔《英语国家史略》英文Preface
