雙語+MP3|美國學(xué)生世界歷史83 另一種革命

83
A Different Kind of Revolution
另一種革命

     JAMES Watt's steam engine and Robert Fulton's steam powered ship were part of a revolution-a different kind of revolution. Usually we think of a revolution as being like the American Revolution or the French Revolution when people fought a war against a government. But this revolution took place slowly and without any armies. Yet it certainly did change the world. It is called the Industrial Revolution.
     In the last chapter, I told you about some of the wonderful inventions like cars, airplanes, radios, and televisions that we have because of the Industrial Revolution. That's the fun part. But a lot of other things happened, too. This peaceful revolution changed the world every bit as much as the big wars- maybe more! Here's how.
     All those wonderful new things were made in factories. The first factories were built in England. They made cloth and then clothing. Later they made railroad cars and tracks. Soon English factories were making all sorts of good things, and England began to grow very rich and powerful.
     In some ways countries are just like boys and girls. You know that sometimes, when one student in a class brings in a new toy or wears a new jacket, everybody else wants one, too. Well, soon other countries wanted to be like England and they began building factories so they would be rich and powerful, too. A lot of European countries like France, Germany, and Italy did this. So did the United States and Japan. Soon all these places were making lots of things in their factories. They made clothes and furniture. They made cars and even candy. This was called the Industrial Revolution.
     We all know that now we can go to the store and buy these things that are made in factories. But would that be enough of a change to call it a REVOLUTION? Well, maybe yes, maybe no. But there were other things that began happening as soon as the factories were built. All of these things together really were a revolution.
     One big change happened like this. A lot of people came to work in the new factories. You wouldn't have much of a factory if nobody worked there, would you? It took a lot of men and women to work in the factories. Families left the countryside. They stopped farming and became factory workers. The men who built the factories wanted so many workers that they even paid children to work there. This wasn't very good for the children, though, because they didn't get to go to school. It also wasn't very good because those early factories had a lot of unsafe machines and sometimes the children and the grownups, too, got hurt. Despite all that, lots of men, women, and children came to work. So one big change is that many people stopped farming and became factory workers. Which would you rather do? Why?
     Some people had been making things at home-like candles or soap or sweaters to sell. When a family does this, it's called a cottage industry because they work in their cottage. After the Industrial Revolution, factories made many of the same things. Since a factory made so many sweaters, for example, so fast, it could sell them for less money than an individual could. Because of this, many people who had worked at home had to go to work in factories.
     Most of the factories were built in cities. Coming to work in the factory meant coming to live in a city. Soon the cities got very crowded. In those early days people had to live close together, because they had to live near their jobs so they could walk to work.
     How far would you be willing to walk to work or school? People often walked a mile or two each way. After trolley cars were invented, people could live farther away from work. At first, trolleys were pulled along tracks on city streets by horses, and they were slow. By the end of the nineteenth century, electric trolleys became common, and people could live even farther away. So the cities grew larger. Here's a second big change then. Cities grew big like the ones we know today.
     Way around the world, even in countries where there weren't any factories yet, people's lives changed, too. You have to stop and think about this for a minute. It may seem hard to believe that the life of a child in Africa, India, Korea, or Hawaii could change just because men in England, America, or Japan built factories. But that's what happened. Here's how.
     You know that when you make anything, you have to make it out of something. So the factories that made clothes and furniture, cars and candy had to make these out of something. Some factories made clothes out of cotton that grew in India. Other factories made furniture out of the wood from trees that grew in forests in Africa, Asia, and the countries around the Caribbean Sea. Cars have to have tires, and they are made out of rubber that comes from rubber trees that grow in forests in Africa, Asia, and South America. To make candy, you use sugar that comes from plants that grow in places like Hawaii and Cuba. Now you can begin to see why the Industrial Revolution was felt around the world.
     The countries that built the factories needed supplies from all around the world. Those countries were strong and had the advantage of modern ships and weapons built in their factories, so the industrialized countries soon moved in and took over a lot of places that had the supplies they wanted-the places where cotton grew, where trees like mahogany and rubber grew, where sugar cane grew. England, France, Germany, and other European countries made colonies of most of Africa and a lot of Asia as well. Japan conquered Korea and some other places nearby. Even the United States came to own places like Hawaii and the Philippines although we didn't call these our colonies.
     Now the people who lived in all these places weren't very happy to have foreigners coming in and taking over. They felt the same way about them that you might feel about a bully at school. They didn't like that big guy who wanted to push all the little guys around. Sometimes the conquerors brought good things, like modern medical care. But, still, nobody really wants to be bossed around by somebody else. So, less than a hundred years later, the colonies around the world rose up, just as we did during the American Revolution, and fought to become independent. You'll read more about this later.

Urban factories spewing smoke （噴著煙的城市工廠）
     You know that sometimes changes aren't always all good. One bad thing that happened because of the Industrial Revolution was the taking of colonies by the rich industrialized countries. Another bad result of the Industrial Revolution is still troubling us today. That is pollution. Also, many natural resources are being used up or destroyed. Pollution and the loss of natural resources are called environmental problems.
     We know that factories that make wonderful things sometimes discharge poisons into the air that we breathe and the water we drink. That is pollution. People can get sick from breathing polluted air and drinking polluted water.
     We know that over the years, many of the earth's forests have been cut down so the wood from the trees could be used for building houses and furniture and for making paper. When a forest is destroyed or an ocean is polluted, then the animals that live there have no place to live any more, and so they die out. When there are no more animals of any given kind, we say that they are extinct. Today, a number of animals are in danger of becoming extinct, either because they are being killed or because their homes are being destroyed. Can you name any of these animals?
     These are some of the problems caused by the Industrial Revolution that we have not yet solved. Do you have any ideas how they could be solved? There's something for you to talk about.
     There are four big things to remember about the Industrial Revolution. A lot of people worked in factories instead of on farms. The towns grew into the large cities that we know today. The industrialized nations became so rich and powerful that they could control most of the rest of the world. And we still have to solve environmental problems that were caused by the Industrial Revolution.