Most of the people who appear most often and most gloriously in the history books are great conquerors (统治者) and generals and soldiers, while the people who really helped civilization forward are often never mentioned at all. We do not know who first set a broken leg, or launched a seaworthy boat, or calculated the length of the year, or manured (施肥)a field; but we know all about the killers and destroyers.
People think a great deal of them, so much that on all the highest pillars (纪念柱)in the great cities of the world you will find the figure of a conqueror or a general or a soldier. And I think most people believe that the greatest countries are those that have beaten in battle the greatest number of other countries and ruled over them as conquerors. It is just possible they are, but they are not the most civilized. Animals fight; so do savages（野蛮人）; so to be good at fighting is to be good in the way in which an animal or a savage is good, but it is not to be civilized. Even being good at getting other people to fight for you and telling them how to do it most efficiently — this, a
fter all, is what conquerors and generals have done — is not being civilized. People fight to settle quarrels. Fighting means killing, and civilized peoples ought to be able to find some ways of settling their d
isputes other than by seeing which side can kill off greater number of the other side, and then saying that the side which has killed most has won. And not only has it won, but, because it has won, it has been in the right. For that is what going to war means; it means saying that power is right.
This is what the story of mankind has on the whole been like. Even our own age has fought the two greatest wars in history, in which millions of people were killed or mutilated (disabled). And while today it is true that people do not fight and kill each other in the streets — while, that is to say, we have got to the stage of keeping the rules and behaving properly to each other in daily life — nations and countries have not learnt to do this yet, and still behave like savages.
小题1:In the opening sentence, the author indicates that .
A．most history books were written by conquerors, generals and soldiers
B．history book tell us far more about conquerors, generals and soldiers than actual creators of civilization
C．those who rally helped human civilization forward is not mentioned in history books at all
D．conquerors, generals and soldiers should be least mentioned in history books小题2:According to the passage, most people believe that the greatest countries are those that .
A．built the highest pillars for their conquerors
B．were ruled by the greatest number of conquerors
C．won the greatest number of battles against other countries
D．were beaten in battle by the greatest number of other countries小题3:In the author’s opinion, the countries that conquered a large number of other countries are
.
A．certainly both the most powerful and most civilized.
B．neither the greatest nor the most civilized in any way.
C．possibly either the most civilized or the most powerful in a way.
D．likely the most powerful in some sense but not the most civilized.小题4:The meaning of the last sentence in Paragraph 2 is that .
A．fighters believe that the winner is right and the loser wrong.
B．only those who are powerful have the right to go to war.
C．those who are right should fight against those who are wrong.
D．only powerful nations might win the right to rule weak ones.
