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大家好，欢迎来到《历史其余部分》。
Hello, and welcome to The Rest is History.
今天，我们要探讨历史争论中一个庞大的话题，这种话题说实话很可能让我们被封号。
Today, we're tackling one of the big beasts of historical arguments, kind of subject that frankly is likely to get us canceled.
我们要谈论的是帝国。
We're gonna be talking about empire.
什么是帝国？
What is empire?
它的目的是什么？
What's it for?
它从何而来？
Where's it come from?
它是否可能是一件好事？
And can it ever be a good thing?
还是它始终在道德上是错误的？
Or is it always morally wrong?
汤姆·霍兰德，自从我们开播以来，我就一直梦想着让你被取消，这正是我的机会。
Tom Holland, I've been dreaming since we started of getting you canceled, and this is my chance.
那我们先说说我们要讨论什么。
Well So let's start by saying what we are gonna talk about.
那是
That's a
支持我的帝国。
vote for my empires.
是的。
Yeah.
当然。
Of course.
我们是在非常宽泛地谈论帝国，对吧？
We're talking about empires very broadly, aren't we?
我们不会讨论某个具体的帝国。
We're not gonna be talking about a specific empire.
我们将贯穿整个历史，探讨这个概念，好吧，我们直接切入正题吧。
We're gonna span the whole of history and the idea well, I mean, let's get down to it.
什么是帝国？
What is an empire?
你会怎么说？
Would you say?
好吧，我们先从词源说起。
Well, let's let's go to the etymology.
比如说，你知道，‘帝国’这个词是从哪里来的？
Let's say, you know, where where does the word empire come from?
它源自一个拉丁词，imperium。
It comes from a Latin word, imperium.
在罗马帝国的历史进程中，imperium的含义以一种非常有趣的方式发生了变化。
And the meaning of imperium over the course of the Roman Empire changes in a quite interesting way.
所以imperium是一种命令，但也指某人拥有发布命令的权利。
So imperium is, it's a command, but it's also the right that someone has to issue a command.
所以，imperator（指挥官）
So an imperator
这几乎就像权威。
It's like authority almost.
没错。
Yeah.
因此，imperator 通常被翻译为将军，是指拥有权威、对下属士兵拥有权力的人。
So an imperator trans conventionally translated as a general, is someone who has authority, who has power over the men who are subject to him.
Imperator 成为奥古斯都——第一位罗马皇帝——获得的头衔，而我们的单词 'emperor'（皇帝）就源自 imperator。
Imperator becomes the title that Augustus, the first Roman emperor, gets, and and our word emperor comes from imperator.
这意味着他拥有对帝国广大领土及其人民的 imperium（统治权）。
But and so it implies that he has imperium over a vast sway of of of the empire and of the people within it.
在奥古斯都生前，一张庞大的帝国地图被悬挂于广场上。
And it's during Augustus' life that a great map of the empire goes up in the forum.
这标志着对 imperium 的理解开始转变为实际指罗马人拥有权力的物理领土。
And that starts to that that's a kind of a a symbol for the way in which the understanding of imperium changes to actually mean the physical territory that the Romans have power over.
我认为，这种对物理领土规模的感知，在罗马古典时期可以说是次大陆级别的。
And I think and I think that that sense of, a physical amount of territory, you know, in the Roman, classically, it's it's kind of subcontinental.
这是一种广阔无垠的领土，伴随着某一个人或特定群体对其他民族所拥有的权威与权力。
It's a vast, vast array of territory combined with authority that that one person or perhaps, you know, a particular people have authority and power over other peoples.
所以我认为，帝国的两个关键要素是：有一个中心，一个主导的中心，没错。
So I think that the the perhaps the two key elements of empire are that you have a a center, you have a dominant Yeah.
中心，以及边缘地区。
Center, and you have peripherals.
没错。
Yeah.
你有一个大都会，然后还有边缘地区。
You have a you have a metropole, and then you have peripheral regions.
而且，你还有一种观念，即这个大都会、这个中心，对边缘地区拥有权威和权力。
And, also, you have an idea that that that one you know, that this this, this metropolis, this metropole, this center has authority and power over the peripheral regions.
因此，我想这就是我对帝国的描述方式。
So I would guess that would be how I would describe empires.
但是，汤姆，你难道不能说——我的意思是，我不想整个比赛都跑客场吧。
But but, Tom, could you not go I mean, I don't wanna play the whole fixture on away turf as it were.
我们总得往前推进一些吧。
We should come further forward at some point.
但你难道不能退一步说，我们所知的最早文明，比如五千年前的古埃及两个王国、印度河流域、美索不达米亚、阿卡德这些地方，这些社会本身往往就是以帝国的形式起源的吗？
But couldn't you go further back and say that the very first civilizations that we know of, let's say, you know, five thousand years ago or whatever, that the two kingdoms of Egypt, the Indus Valley, sort of Mesopotamia, Akkad, and all these kind of places, that that society itself originated often as empires.
我的意思是，它们显然不是以民族国家的形式起源的。
I mean, obviously, it didn't originate as nation states.
嗯，没错。
Well, yeah.
因此，复杂的权力体系拥有精英阶层，统治着众多不同族群，这些人常常说着不同的方言或语言，甚至崇拜不同的神祇，却服从于一个统一的权威。
So Sophisticated powers had elites that that governed places with lots of different people who often spoke different dialects or languages or maybe worship different gods and that they had a single authority.
我的意思是，波斯显然是这方面的典型例子，你不是写过关于波斯的东西吗？
I mean, obviously, Persia is the is the famous example of that, isn't it, which you've written about?
有一个非常精彩的词叫‘帝国形成’，指的是帝国如何逐步建立起来的过程。
Well, there's this fantastic phrase, imperiogenesis, the process by which empires come to be formed.
你提到了埃及和美索不达米亚。
And you talked about Egypt, and you talked about Mesopotamia.
在埃及，法老的形象在罗马意义上具有‘帝国’的特征。
In Egypt, the figure of the pharaoh, he's a figure within in the Roman sense, imperium.
他拥有权力，同时也逐渐对整个尼罗河流域拥有权威，这片区域最终构成了埃及王国。
He has power, but he also has comes to have authority over the entire, Nile Valley that comes to constitute the kingdom of Egypt.
所有居住在尼罗河沿岸的人，都说同一种语言。
And, everyone who lives along the Nile, they speak the same language.
他们基本上崇拜相同的神祇。
They essentially worship the same gods.
他们承认同一位统治者。
They acknowledge the same ruler.
因此，古埃及或许更接近我们对民族国家的理解。
And so in a I I guess that ancient Egypt approximates perhaps more closely to our sense of a nation state.
在美索不达米亚，你有多个城市，每个城市都必须修建城墙，主要是为了将财富留在城内，将外人挡在城外。
In Mesopotamia, you have different cities, and each city has to to build walls, essentially because to to keep the wealth within and to keep outsiders outside.
而美索不达米亚还要面对一个事实：在底格里斯河和幼发拉底河的泛滥平原之外，群山之中或沙漠里潜伏着掠夺性的势力，一旦有机会，他们就会来抢夺这片土地上的财富。
And Mesopotamia, on top of that, has to deal with the fact that beyond the floodplains of of the Tigris and the Euphrates, you have predatory powers lurking in the mountains, perhaps lurking in the deserts who would you know, if they had the chance, would come and grab a bit of this.
因此，在美索不达米亚，除非具备一定程度的尚武精神，否则城邦无法生存。
So you cannot survive as a city state in Mesopotamia unless you have a degree of militarism.
而这种尚武精神反过来不可避免地催生了扩张野心。
And this militarism in turn inevitably fosters an ambition.
据说，第一个这样做的就是阿卡德城的萨尔贡，他开始征服其他城邦。
Famously, the first person to do it supposedly is this guy, Sargon, of the city of Akkad, who conquers starts to conquer other cities.
因此，中东地区的帝国主义传统，我认为，才是真正意义上的现代帝国的始祖。
And so it's the tradition of imperialism in the The Middle East, really, I think, that is the kind of the great granddaddy of what today we would think of as empires.
因为从阿卡德开始的模式，后来延续到了亚述和巴比伦。
Because what begins with Akkad goes on to you you you get, Assyria, you get Babylon.
亚述是一个以残暴和掠夺著称的帝国，其统治完全建立在军事压迫和恐怖之上。
Assyria is a famously brutal and predatory empire, and, essentially, its rule is founded on military oppression and on terror.
因此，当亚述人征服一个敌对民族时，他们会将他们强制迁离家园。
So when the Assyrians conquer a rival people, they will deport them.
众所周知，他们对以色列的十个部落也这样做了。
Famously, they do this to the the the 10 tribes of Israel.
随着时间推移，在亚述帝国期间，被流放到亚述的人被称为战利品。
And in time, over the course of the Assyrian empire, people who are deported to Assyria come to be called booty.
因此，他们就是亚述人掠夺走的战利品的一部分。
So they are, you know, part of the loot that the Assyrians are carrying off.
那些反抗的人会被仪式性地、羞辱性地处死。
Those who resist are are are kind of ritually and humiliatingly killed.
人们，尤其是领袖，会被押送回去，关在笼子里，放在亚述城市外，让民众围观。
People are you know, leaders are transported back, put in cages with wild animals outside the cities of of Assyria so that people can watch them.
其他国王则会被砍下头颅。
Other peep you know, the kings are are have their heads cut off.
王室家族也会被砍下头颅。
The royal families will have their heads cut off.
朝臣们会被押回尼尼微，被迫在街上游行，头上挂着自己的头颅。
Courtiers will be brought back to Nineveh, made to parade through the streets with the heads around their around their necks.
这些是恐惧与恐怖的景象。
So these are speck spectacles of of dread and terror.
亚述最终几乎从地球上彻底消失了。
Assyria ends up basically being wiped from the face of the earth.
尼尼微被踏为平地。
Nineveh gets trampled down.
原因在于，从长远来看，恐怖和威慑不足以维持一个帝国。
And the reason for that is that terror and dread in the long run is insufficient to keep an empire.
而崛起的伟大帝国，正如你所说，是波斯帝国，它扩张远超美索不达米亚，统治了埃及直至印度河流域。
And the great empire that emerges, which, you know, expands far beyond Mesopotamia to rule Egypt and all the way to the Indus, is, as you said, the Persian empire.
波斯人的一项伟大创新是，他们将自己的帝国与道德美德联系在一起。
And the great thing that the Persians innovate is that they identify their empire with moral virtue.
他们的帝国是真理的力量，是光明的力量，是善良的力量。
Their empire is a force for truth, is a force for light, is a force for goodness.
通过这种定义，他们立即意味着反对他们的人站在了黑暗与谎言的一边。
And by defining their empire in that sense, it immediately means that those who oppose them are on the side of darkness and the lie.
但所以，汤姆，你的意思是，你显然强调了暴力。
But so, Tom, you I mean, you obviously emphasized violence.
我想，许多二十一世纪的学者和那些思考帝国的人，都会把帝国理解为暴力、权力和各种压迫的形式，我想是这样。
And I guess a lot of, you know, twenty first century scholars and people who sort of think about empire think of empires in terms of violence and power and all this sort of oppression, I suppose.
但显然还有另一种思考方式，比如波斯，你举了波斯的例子。
But there is obviously another way to think about this, which is that, let's say Persia, you give the example of Persia.
我知道你在你的书《波斯之火》中写过这个。
I know you've written about this in your book, Persian Fire.
波斯人拥有令人惊叹的道路网络，他们有统一的度量衡、货币，还有一种世界观，认为自己的世界就像一座围墙环绕的花园，对吧？
So the Persians have this amazing network of roads, they've got weights and measures, they've got a currency, they've got a sense of, they view their own world as this kind of walled garden, don't they?
而围墙之外则是野蛮和野性，内部则是一切有序。
And beyond is kind of barbarism and savagery, and within all is order.
而且可以合理地认为，如果你是来自米底或如今伊朗地区的一个普通人，你可能会想，嗯，生活在帝国的核心地带，生活其实也没那么糟。
And presumably, you could make an argument that if you're a sort of, you know, Joe Bloggs from media or from, you know, Mesopotamia or what's now Iran, you might think, well, you know, life isn't actually so bad in the heart of this empire.
我们拥有这一切基础设施。
We've got all this infrastructure.
我们有这么多东西。
We've got all this stuff.
当然，总是存在那种普遍的威胁，比如我可能被砍头之类的，但我宁愿这样，也不愿生活在一个无政府状态的世界里，那里野蛮的部落不断互相争斗，侵略者来来往往，陷入一种霍布斯式的生存斗争。
Of course, there is always the the the ubiquitous threat that I might get my head cut off or or whatever, but I'd rather that than live in an anarchic world of of sort of savage clans fighting each other all the time and and and invaders coming and going and a sort of sort of Hobbesian struggle for existence.
我的意思是，这不就是历史上帝国存在的理由吗？
I mean, that's the the the justification for empire through history, isn't it?
这等同于秩序。
That it equates to order.
我想，近东地区基本上自萨尔贡阿卡德时代以来就一直由帝国统治。
Well, I suppose that the Near East has basically always been ruled by empires pretty much from, you know, from from the time of Sargon of Akkad.
而早期帝国的经验总的来说是可怕的。
And the the earliest experience of empire by and large is is is terrible.
著名的、具有深远影响的表述，就是我们所说的《旧约》，因为以色列人以及后来的犹大王国——南方王国——他们非常渺小。
And the famous, you know, I mean, seismically influential articulation of this is is what we call the Old Testament because the Israelites and then the the the the people of Judah, the Southern Kingdom are you know, they're tiny.
他们很小。
They're small.
他们是小鱼。
They're minnows.
因此，他们总是被大国践踏，比如埃及人、巴比伦人和亚述人。
And so they're always being trampled down by the big powers, the Egyptians, by the Babylonians, by the Assyrians.
在《旧约》中，法老和亚述国王都是阴险的人物。
And pharaohs and kings of Assyria in the Old Testament are are are sinister figures.
有一个例外恰恰证明了这一点，那就是居鲁士，以赛亚称他为弥赛亚，即受膏者，神的代理人，因为
There is one exception that proves and this exception is Cyrus who is hailed by Isaiah as the messiah, as the anointed one, god's agent because
居鲁士大帝吗？
Is that Cyrus the great of birth?
居鲁士大帝。
Cyrus the great.
居鲁士所做的，是允许被流放到美索不达米亚的各族人民返回家园。
What Cyrus does is to say to the deported peoples who've been carried to Mesopotamia, you can go back home.
其中就包括那些将成为犹太人的人，他们返回了故土。
And among those are the people who will become the Jews who go back.
你知道，他们曾在巴比伦的河边哭泣。
You know, they've been weeping by the rivers of Babylon.
他们回到耶路撒冷，并重建了它。
They go back to Jerusalem, and they refound it.
因此，在圣经传统中，波斯人被铭记为好人。
And so the Persians in in the biblical tradition are remembered as as good guys.
而且，确实，对于那些成为犹太人的群体来说，波斯人被非常非常亲切地铭记，因为基本上，他们带来了和平。
And, absolutely, they know, you for for for the people who become the Jews, the Persians are remembered very, very fondly because, basically, they, you know, they provide peace.
他们带来了秩序。
They provide order.
他们允许耶路撒冷的人民重建圣殿。
They allow them they allowed the people to the people of Jerusalem to rebuild the temple.
但难道这不是生活在波斯帝国的许多人对波斯的看法吗？
But isn't that how a lot of people living in the Persian Empire would have thought of Persia?
比如说，我们以前播客里讨论过的亚历山大大帝的经典例子。
Say, for example, the classic thing we talked in previous podcasts for Alexander the Great.
亚历山大大帝入侵波斯，声称自己是解放者和英雄。
Alexander the Great invades Persia, he says he's coming as a liberator and a hero.
在西方，他的故事总是被讲述为一位无畏的冒险家，深入这个邪恶的帝国并横扫一切。
And his story in the West is always told of this intrepid adventurer who goes into this sort of evil empire and cuts a swathe through it.
但如果你是生活在波斯的普通百姓，突然有个马其顿人带着军队出现，说我要摧毁你的帝国，
But presumably if you're, you know, Joe Bloggs living in Persia and this Macedonian turns up with his army and says, I'm gonna tear down your empire.
我是来当解放者的。
I'm coming as a liberator.
我的天，这不就是一场噩梦吗？
I mean, it's a nightmare, isn't it?
这些根本不讲你语言的人，横冲直撞，把你的国家砸得稀烂。
These are these people kind of who don't speak your language, of charging through your country, smashing everything up.
想必很多人其实挺喜欢生活在波斯帝国的。
Presumably, a lot of people quite like living in the Persian empire.
是的。
Yes.
而希腊统治的根基要浅得多。
And the the roots of of Greek rule are much more shallow.
尽管如此，东地中海地区之所以在广袤地域内最终成为希腊语区，部分原因在于希腊人带给帝国传统的，是他们文化的魅力与精致。
Although having said that, part of the reason why the Eastern Mediterranean ends up Greek speaking through vast swathes across vast swathes beyond Greece is that what the Greeks bring to the imperial tradition is the kind of the glamour and sophistication of their culture.
因此，这是帝国权力巩固统治的另一种方式：如果他们带来的文化足够吸引人，最初是精英阶层，随后可能逐渐渗透到各个阶层，使他们认同这种文化。
So that's another way in which, imperial powers can kinda really cement their rule is if the culture that they bring is sufficiently kind of appealing that, I I guess, initially elites, and then perhaps it kind of percolates down through the various classes, that they come to identify with it.
这基本上就是希腊语为何能在东地中海地区广泛传播的原因。
And and that's essentially how and why Greek ends up being spoken across the Eastern Mediterranean.
罗马的情况也类似，尽管罗马是一个极其残暴的军事强权，它的军事化程度甚至可与亚述人相媲美。
And it's the same kind of process that ultimately happens with Rome, that although Rome is an unspeakably brutally militaristic power I mean, it's it's militaristic in a way that kind of rivals the Assyrians, really.
最终，罗马帝国能够长期维持统一的原因，在于它成功地向人们灌输了‘罗马性’的理念，以至于在公元三世纪初，整个帝国的所有成年男性都被授予了公民权。
Ultimately, the reason that the Roman Empire coheres for as long as it does is because it is able to sell the idea of Remenitas, of being Roman, to the degree that, at the beginning of the third century, all male adults across the empire are given citizenship.
即使西罗马帝国灭亡后，东罗马地区（即我们所说的拜占庭）的人们仍自视为罗马人。
And even when the Roman empire in the West falls, people in the Eastern half, what we call Byzantium, are still identifying themselves as Romans.
当奥斯曼人在1453年到来时，保卫君士坦丁堡的人们仍认为自己是罗马人，尽管最初东地中海地区的人们曾被罗马军队极其残酷地征服过。
And when the Ottomans turn up in 1453, the people who are defending Constantinople think of themselves as Romans, even though originally the people in the East had been conquered very, very brutally by Roman armies.
事实上，帝国能够生存并扎根的最可靠方式，就是让被征服者觉得他们的征服是为了他们自己的利益。
And, really, the the the surest way that an empire can survive and put down roots is to get the conquered people to feel that their the conquest has been for their own good.
不。
No.
但这难道不会引出一个问题：帝国的替代方案是什么？
But doesn't that then raise the question of the alternatives to empire?
所以，如果在人类历史的大部分时间里你没有生活在帝国中，那你生活在什么之中？
So if you're not living in an empire for most of human history, what are you living in?
从某种意义上说，在欧亚大陆的大部分历史中，你面对的是庞大的陆地帝国。
Well, in a sense, for most of of Eurasian history, you have the the great land empires.
在欧亚大陆的大部分历史中，如果你不生活在帝国里，那你就是野蛮人。
For most of Eurasian history, if you don't live in an empire, you're a barbarian.
你处在边缘地带。
You're on the fringes.
你生活在超越中国、超越罗马、超越波斯、超越北印度伟大帝国的遥远地区。
So you're on, you know, you're on beyond China, beyond Rome, beyond Persia, beyond the the the great empires of Northern India.
所以你是个游牧民。
So you're a nomad.
你是个游牧民。
You're you're a nomad.
是的。
Yes.
从某种意义上说，帝国通过与这些游牧民、这些野蛮人相对立来定义自身。
And there's a sense in which empires come to define themselves against these nomads, against these barbarians.
这巩固了一种观念：生活在伟大帝国中才是人类的常态。
And that beds down the assumption that to live in a great empire is the kind of normal condition for humans.
从某种意义上说，欧洲是特殊的，因为罗马帝国崩溃后，它并没有重新建立起来。
Now in a sense, Europe is unusual in that after the Roman Empire implodes, it doesn't reconstitute itself.
我们之前做过一期关于中国的节目，讨论过中国是不是一个连续的帝国？
We did we did a you know, the episode on China where we were talking about, you know, is China one continuous empire?
它是一系列帝国的延续吗？
Is it a sequence of I mean, sequence of empires.
而且，事实上，两者都是。
And, really, it's it's it's both.
但将中国帝国视为自然状态的这种观念，不仅被帝国境内的人所接受，也被那些蛮族入侵者深深信奉。
But that idea of a Chinese empire as being the natural state of things is something that, you know, not just the people who live within the Chinese empire, but but the barbarian invaders as well really holds to.
而在欧洲，这种情况并未发生，尤其是在曾经的罗马帝国西部地区，这种统一性被打破了。
Whereas in Europe, that doesn't happen, particularly in the western half of of what had been the Roman empire, and that kind of splinters.
我认为，这对我们今天西方人看待帝国的方式产生了关键影响。
And that, I think, is a kind of crucial influence on the way that that we today in the West view empire.
因为尽管我们可能会倾向于认为——我认为，普遍存在一种观念，认为帝国基本上等同于欧洲殖民主义。
Because although we might be tempted to you know, I think I think that there is a kind of sense, very widespread that assumes that empire is basically synonymous with European colonialism.
但实际上，情况完全不是这样。
But, actually, that's not not the case at all.
欧洲的独特之处恰恰在于，帝国只是一种短暂的经历，而在西欧大陆内部，每一次试图重建罗马帝国的努力都基本以失败告终。
What's distinctive about Europe is precisely that empire has been the kind of very fleeting experience and that within the continent of Western Europe, you know, within Western Europe itself, every attempt to reconstitute the Roman Empire has basically failed.
嗯，汤姆，我同意这一点。
Well, I agree with that, Tom.
当我谈到帝国时，总是让我感到惊讶的是，人们认为民族国家才是常态。
And I wonder whether see, what always strikes me when we talk about empires is this sense that the nation state is the norm.
现在这已经成为一种默认假设。
That's the assumption now.
在21世纪，无论是社交媒体上的讨论，还是人们日常谈论时，都会说：为什么不能让人民自己管理自己的事务？
That's what all twenty first century sort of all the discussion on social media or when people talk about it, they sort of say, why can't you leave people to govern their own affairs?
为什么不能呢？但显然，在人类历史的大部分时间里，这根本不是一个可行的选择。
Why can't they but obviously, for most of human history, that was not an option.
民族国家从未被列为一种可选方案，大多数人也不会以这种方式去理解它。
The nation state was not on the table as an alternative, and most people would not have recognized it that way.
没错。
Right.
所以关于
And so about the
罗马帝国。
Roman Empire.
When the Roman Empire fell, people didn't think to themselves, oh, brilliant.
When the Roman Empire fell, people didn't think to themselves, oh, brilliant.
We can have Spain now.
We can have Spain now.
We can live in, you know, we we can live in Belgium.
We can live in, you know, we we can live in Belgium.
What they actually thought was that the fabric of order, the infrastructure on which we depended for trade, for exchange, for kind of promotion, for status, you know, for for law and order is gone, and what is left is anarchy.
What they actually thought was that the fabric of order, the infrastructure on which we depended for trade, for exchange, for kind of promotion, for status, you know, for for law and order is gone, and what is left is anarchy.
Well, no.
Well, no.
I think I think that there were plenty of people who who welcomed the the collapse of Roman power because I think by the by the end, it had become incredibly
I think I think that there were plenty of people who who welcomed the the collapse of Roman power because I think by the by the end, it had become incredibly
They fancied power themselves, surely.
They fancied power themselves, surely.
That's true for the for the invaders, for the for the, you know, the the Franks and the the Visigoths who who take over the commanding heights of the imperial system.
That's true for the for the invaders, for the for the, you know, the the Franks and the the Visigoths who who take over the commanding heights of the imperial system.
但我认为，对于社会底层的人来说，罗马统治的崩溃往往是一种解放，因为这意味着你不再被税吏压迫。
But I think for for people lower down the social classes, I think that the collapse of Roman rule was often a liberation because it meant that you weren't being oppressed by tax collectors.
到了西罗马帝国末期，它已经变成一个极其压迫的体系，因为它依赖于榨取巨额税收来支付军费以维持运转。
And by the end of the, the Roman Empire in the West, it's become a hugely oppressive structure because it depended on leaching vast amounts of money for taxes to pay for the military to keep it going.
所以整个体系已经变成了一种暴力压迫的保护性勒索。
So the whole thing had become the kind of violently oppressive protection racket.
是的，肯定也有相反的观点，即有很多人——有史料记载，人们哀叹罗马帝国的灭亡，说：‘现在我们不得不忍受成千上万的汪达尔人、西哥特人或其他什么人在乡间横行。’
Yeah, surely there's a counter argument, which is that there's lots of people who are I mean, are sources that lament the death of the Roman Empire and that sort of say, oh, now we have to put up with tens of thousands of vandals or Visigoths or whatever roaming across the countryside.
你知道，我敢肯定他们可不是那种借走奶壶、事后付款的文明人。
You know, over presume I mean, I'm sure they're not kind of, you know, borrowing jugs of milk and and paying for them afterwards.
当然。
Absolutely.
你知道，帝国是靠各种纽带维系的。
The you know, the the empire is kind of held together by sinews.
一旦这些纽带被切断，一切就会分崩离析，贸易也确实开始崩溃。
And when those sinews get cut, everything falls to pieces and and trade basically does start to to to to collapse.
尽管这一过程比人们通常对罗马帝国衰亡后世界陷入黑暗的刻板印象要漫长得多。
Although it's it's far more protracted than the kind of stereotype of the Roman empire goes out and everything turns to darkness would would convey.
但我认为，是的，你提出的问题是：人们究竟更想要什么？
But I think that, yes, I mean, you're pointing you know, what what would people rather have?
他们是更想要自由，还是更想要无政府状态？
Would they rather have liberty or would they rather have anarchy?
在西方传统中，这常常被如此界定，因为我认为，我们在西方继承了两大传统。
And that's the way that in that in the Western tradition, it's often been framed because I think that that that we are, you know, in the West, we're the heirs to two great traditions.
我们继承了《圣经》。
We're the heir to you know, we have the bible.
而在《圣经》中，帝国通常被视为反派。
And in the bible, empires are generally regarded as the baddies.
我们已经谈到过，埃及的法老是如何压迫以色列子民的。
So we've talked about how the Egypt know, Pharaoh is a is the oppressor of the children of Israel.
亚述人和巴比伦人摧毁了以色列王国。
The Assyrians and the Babylonians, you know, they they destroy the kingdom of Israel.
他们摧毁了犹大王国。
They destroy the kingdom of Judah.
这些是偶像，嗯，
These are idol Well,
那是因为他们没有帝国，是因为他们没有
that's because they don't have an em it's because they don't have
自己的皇帝。
an emperor of their own.
是的。
Yeah.
他们太小了。
They're small.
因为他们是，嗯。
Because they're the yeah.
是的。
Yeah.
但这意味着，这些经文对我们关于帝国在道德上腐败的假设产生了深远影响。
But but it means that that those scriptures are a powerful influence on our assumption that there is something morally corrupt with empire.
在新约中，你知道，耶稣被一个强大的帝国机器折磨致死。
And then in the New Testament, you know, Jesus is tortured to death by the apparatus of a great imperial power.
在《启示录》中，我认为这是有史以来最具影响力的反帝国宣传作品之一。
And in the book of Revelation, I mean, it's one of I think it's the most influential work of anti imperial propaganda ever written.
巴比伦的妓女至今仍是权力的象征。
The whore of Babylon is an emblem of power to this day.
你知道，拉斯塔法里教徒会谈论巴比伦。
You know, you have you know, Rastafarians will talk about Babylon.
伦敦、纽约，这些伟大的中心，伟大的都市。
London, New York, the great center, the great metropoles.
巴比伦妓女从世界其他地区榨取资源与财富这一观念，是对罗马帝国主义极其有力的隐喻，而我们至今仍是这一传统的继承者。
That idea of the whore of Babylon leaching goods and wealth from the rest of the world is an incredibly powerful image of Roman imperialism and and and is one that we still kind of are the heirs of to this day.
但我们也是罗马本身的继承者，对吧，汤姆？
But we're also the heirs to Rome itself though, Tom, aren't we?
因为，我是说，我们在上一集谈到了美国和罗马。
Because, I mean, we talked in the previous episode about America and Rome.
我是说，我们围绕着大英帝国和欧洲各大帝国，它们在某种程度上以罗马为榜样。
I mean, we surround the the British Empire, the great European Empires, they model themselves on Rome to some extent.
所以我们可以说是双重的，是的。
So we sort of have a dual Yeah.
继承。
Inheritance.
但你同意这一点吗？
But but Would you agree with that?
但就连这种古典遗产也是矛盾的，因为当然，你说得对，罗马的榜样极其重要。
Even that classical inheritance is ambivalent because, of course, you're right that the example of Rome is absolutely enormous.
我的意思是，当我们想到帝国时，首先想到的就是罗马。
I mean, when we think of empire, that's what that's what we think of.
传统上，当欧洲列强追求帝国时，都会以罗马为榜样。
And European powers traditionally, when they've aspired to empire, have modeled themselves on Rome.
当然。
Absolutely.
但古典传统中确实存在一种矛盾，因为如果我们是希腊的继承者，那么希腊人伟大的英雄式冲突就是他们与波斯帝国的战争，当时波斯人试图向西扩张进入希腊。
But but there is an ambivalence in that classical tradition because if we're the heirs of Greece, the great the great heroic conflict for the Greeks was their battle against the Persian Empire when when the Persians sought to expand westwards into Greece.
马拉松战役、萨拉米斯战役，这些都被希腊人视为争取自由的战斗。
And the battles of Marathon, the battles of Salamis, this was cast by the Greeks as battles for freedom.
而在
And at the
应该写一本关于这个的书。
end should do a book about this.
应该有人写。
Someone should.
公元前479年，普拉提亚战役——这场决定性的陆地战役结束了波斯对希腊的武装入侵，斯巴达指挥官走进了波斯将军留下的豪华帐篷。
And and four seven nine, the battle great land battle of Platea when the armed invasion of Greece is ended, the Spartan commander goes to the great tent of the king that's been left for the Persian general.
波斯将军已在普拉提亚战场上被杀，尸体横陈。
He's been killed, left dead on the battlefield of Bitea.
他走进去，惊叹于金子、长袍和各种财富。
And he goes in and he marvels at the wealth of gold and robes and everything.
他看着这丰盛的宴席，命令波斯厨师准备一场盛大的宴会。
And he looks at this huge feast, and he orders the Persian chefs to rustle up an enormous feast.
然后，他端出了斯巴达传统的、难以下咽的肉汤。
And then he order he he brings out the kind of traditional Spartan meal of disgusting broth.
他邀请其他希腊指挥官进来，说：‘看看这个。’
And he invites all the other Greek commanders in and says, look at this.
这难道不荒谬吗？
Isn't this ridiculous?
你知道吗？这些波斯人跋涉千里，竟然是为了抢夺我们的贫穷。
Do you know this these Persians have come all this way to rob us of our poverty.
这就是希腊人如何看待自己的：高尚、贫穷，坚定地抵抗帝国主义。
And that's how the Greeks like to see themselves, as noble, as poor, as standing firm against imperialism.
这也是我们继承的一部分。
And that also is a part of our inheritance.
但让我插一句，汤姆。
But let me jump in there, Tom.
希腊人有殖民地。
The Greeks had colonies.
是的。
Yeah.
希腊人在西西里岛和意大利南部建立了殖民地。
The Greeks established colonies in Sicily and, I don't know, Southern Italy.
他们自己就是殖民者。
They they were colonizers themselves.
所以，把希腊人看作像《星球大战》中的反抗联盟那样高贵、勇敢的斯巴达自由战士，这种说法显然站不住脚。
So the idea of them as these sort of, you know, the rebel alliance of of Star Wars as these sort of noble, plucky Spartan freedom fighters, that surely doesn't hold water.
希腊人其实非常乐意当帝国主义者。
The Greeks would have been perfectly happy to be imperialists.
只是他们不太擅长而已。
They just weren't very good at it.
雅典人和斯巴达人，在击败波斯人之后，都试图建立帝国。
Well and the Athenians and the Spartans, in the wake of the the the defeat of the Persians, both have a go at the empire.
我的意思是，雅典人基本上接管了波斯人在爱琴海的帝国，所以这里存在着明显的虚伪。
I mean, the Athenians basically take over the Persian Aegean empire and run so, yeah, there's a massive kind of streak of hypocrisy there completely.
罗马人身上也有同样的矛盾，因为罗马人同样高度重视自由，认为那些种萝卜的农民才是罗马美德的体现，而统治帝国则会带来腐化。
And there's a streak and there's the same strain in Rome as well because for the Romans, they likewise lay a great emphasis on on libertas, on freedom, on the the way in which turnip eat turnip eating peasantry is kind of the essence of Roman virtue, and that to rule an empire is to be corrupting.
因此，当罗马人开始入侵苏格兰时，像塔西佗这样的元老已经将整个帝国体系视为本质上腐化的。
So by the time that the Romans are kind of invading Scotland, you have senators like Tacitus who are seeing the whole kind of apparatus of empire as inherently corrupting.
于是，他把话放在了反对罗马人的蛮族口中，让一位苏格兰酋长说出了那句名言：你们制造一片荒漠，却称之为和平。
And so he's putting words into the barbarians who are opposing the Romans, and he gives to a Scottish chieftain the famous line that they, you know, they they create a desert and call it peace.
而且这种做法也体现在
And that also done that in
口音中。
an accent.
你应该
You should have
做过了。
done this.
我不会去冒险，你
I'm not gonna I'm not gonna risk You
应该有
should have
让听众关掉。
melted listeners turning off.
但所以，这种罗马人对帝国的怀疑，也是我们西方人继承下来的整体观念的一部分。
But but and but so that that's that also that Roman suspicion of empire is also a part of the cocktail that that we in the West inherit.
所以我们绝对
So we absolutely
继承了小英格兰主义。
inherit the little Englanderism.
这就是小英格兰主义吗？
Is that little Englanderism?
是的。
Yeah.
在一定程度上。
To its degree.
但我的意思是，帝国在道德上具有腐蚀性这一观念，是我们从罗马人那里继承来的。
But, I mean, you know, it's it's the the idea that that empire is morally corrupting is something that we get from the Romans.
自由值得为对抗庞大的帝国而斗争，这一观念是我们从希腊人那里继承来的。
The idea that liberty is something worth fighting against enormous empires is something we get from the Greeks.
帝国在道德上具有腐蚀性这一观念，是我们从《圣经》中继承来的。
And the idea that empires are morally corrupt is something that we get from from the Bible.
而这，你知道，基本上就是为什么去殖民化的冲动如此具有西方特色。
And that, you know, that is basically why the impulse to decolonize is incredibly western.
所以。
And so
好的。
Okay.
说到这个，我得打断你了。
On that note on that note, I'm gonna I'm gonna stop you talking.
够了，别再谈汤姆·霍兰德的道德堕落了。
Enough of Tom Holland's moral corruption.
我们先休息一下，给这个帝国的完美化身泡杯茶，广告后回来继续和这位‘堕落先生’聊聊。
We are gonna take a short break and brew that perfect embodiment of empire a cup of tea, and we should be back with mister Corrupt after the break.
再见。
Goodbye.
欢迎回到《历史其余部分》。
Welcome back to The Rest is History.
上周四，我们探讨了十八、十九世纪城市中关于性这一极富争议的话题。
Last Thursday, we brought you the fabulously outrageous subject of sex in the eighteenth and nineteenth century cities.
而本周四，我们将深入这口大锅，审视女巫和巫术在英国社会乃至整个欧洲社会中的角色。
And this Thursday, we're looking inside the cauldron, and we're examining the role of witches and witchcraft in British society and indeed European society.
现在，我们将开始探讨一些关于帝国的问题。
And now we're gonna get into some of these questions about empire.
但在那之前，汤姆，你还没有真正回答那个关键问题：帝国总是坏的吗？
But before we do, Tom, you haven't really answered the big question, which is, is empire always bad?
不是。
No.
因为帝国往往会制定出评判它们自身的标准。
Because empires tend to create the standards by which they're judged.
所以
So
我以前听过你这么说。
I've heard you say that before.
我觉得这并不算回避问题。
I don't think that's very evasive.
这恰恰是回避问题。
That's very evasive.
典型的例子就是阿拉伯帝国。
The so the classic example of that is the Arab empire.
对。
Right.
阿拉伯帝国？
Arab empire?
肯定不是。
Surely not.
嗯，所以这个
Well, so so the
阿拉伯人对此提出了主张。
Arab made that claim on it.
所以阿拉伯帝国，倭马亚王朝、阿拔斯王朝，以及后来瓜分原始阿拉伯帝国的各个继承帝国，都以伊斯兰教来为自己的统治辩护。
So so the Arab empire, the Umayyads, the Abbasids, and then the the various inheritor empires that, carve up the original Arab empire, they justify it in terms of Islam.
被他们征服的人们皈依了伊斯兰教，因此将征服视为上帝旨意的体现。
And the people that they've conquered become Muslim and therefore see their conquest as an expression of God's will.
我的意思是，这难道不显得
I mean, I doesn't that not seem
这是一个合理的观点，
a reasonable argument to know,
这这，我
it's a it's a I
我最近和某人有过这样的争论，他们说，帝国总是坏的。
had this argument with somebody recently, and they said, you know, the empires are always bad.
它们总是压迫性的，等等。
They're always oppressive and all the rest of it.
我说，当然，当人们进行这种对话时，他们几乎总是想到十八、十九和二十世纪初的欧洲殖民帝国，不是吗？
And I said and of course, when people have this conversation, they're almost always thinking about European colonial empires of the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries, aren't they?
我说，奥斯曼帝国，真的是件坏事吗？
And I said, oh, the Ottoman Empire, a really bad thing?
现场出现了一阵尴尬的沉默。
And there was this sort of embarrassed pause.
不知道该说什么。
Didn't know what to say.
然后我说，正如你所说的，阿拉伯帝国。
And then I said, exactly what you said, the Arab Empire.
你会说阿拉伯帝国是邪恶的吗？
Are you gonna argue that the Arab Empire was evil?
当然，没有人会提出这种观点。
And, of course, nobody will make that argument.
不是因为我认为他们害怕，而是因为这种说法明显愚蠢——去看待一个持续了数个世纪、其绝大多数人民视之为理所当然的事物，却用如此简单化的方式一笔勾销。
Not because they I think because they're afraid, but because it's a self evidently foolish thing to say, to look at something that lasted centuries that most of its people took completely for granted.
我认为这种做法简直荒谬。
And to just sort of write it off in this simplistic way, I will.
我认为这太奇怪了。
I think is just bizarre.
同样地，当君士坦丁堡的罗马人（罗马诺伊）为保卫他们的城市和帝国而对抗奥斯曼人时，他们是在以罗马人的身份战斗。
And and very similarly, the Romans, the Romaioi of Constantinople, when they're fighting to keep their city and their empire against the Ottomans, you know, they the they're doing it as Romans.
他们认为自己
Are they they see that
同样地
as likewise
那里有一个巴萨齐。
There was a Basazi there.
是的。
Yeah.
但他们，你知道，这些人早在公元前二世纪到一世纪就被罗马人残酷地征服了。
But but but but they, you know, they these are people who were conquered very brutally by the Romans back in the the second first century BC.
到了十五世纪，他们认识到自己是罗马人，这是上帝的旨意。
And by the fifteenth century, they are identifying the fact that they are Roman with God's purpose.
所以，你想想，我们有什么资格说拜占庭帝国是邪恶的呢？
So in that you know, who are we to say the Byzantine Empire was was was evil?
我的意思是，难道不正是这样吗？牛津大学的历史学家约翰·达尔文在他的著作《帖木儿之后》中提出了这一点，这是一部关于帝国的伟大历史著作。
I mean, also, isn't it just the case that basically I mean, John Darwin, a historian at Oxford, makes this point in his book after Tamilane, which is a great history of empires.
他基本上说，帝国是自然的单位。
And he basically says, empire is the natural unit.
在大多数历史中，帝国一直是人类组织的自然形式。
For most of history, empire has been the natural unit of human organization.
你越强大、越富有，就越有可能建立帝国。
The more powerful you are, the richer you are, the more likely you are to have an empire.
威尼斯人曾经拥有一个帝国。
The Venetians had an empire.
你知道吗？
You know?
葡萄牙曾经拥有一个帝国。
Portugal had an empire.
比利时曾经拥有一个帝国。
Belgium had an empire.
基本上，只要你处于顶端，就会拥有帝国，因为这是影响力、权威以及诸如此类事物的体现。
Basically, whenever you're at the top of the tree, you have an empire because it's an expression of influence and authority and all of those kinds of things.
没有帝国的世界，也将是一个没有人类的世界。
And and a world without empires would be a world without human beings.
这就是我的观点，因为我认为你无法将世界割裂成一个个快乐、和谐、民主的民族国家。
And that would be my view because I don't think you can fragment the world into into sort of happy, harmonious, democratic nation states.
事情根本不是这样的。
It just doesn't work that way.
嗯，我不确定是否同意这一点，因为约翰·达尔文的《后帖木儿时代》主要聚焦于欧亚大陆。
Well, I'm not sure I agree with that because the, the John Darwin book after Tamilane is basically focused on Eurasia.
因此，它关注的是那些庞大帝国绝对属于常态的地区。
And so it's focused on on areas where huge empires absolutely are are the norm.
比如波斯帝国、奥斯曼帝国、中华帝国，以及丝绸之路沿线那些兴衰更替的各个帝国。
So Persian Empire, Ottoman Empire, Chinese Empire, the various empires of the Silk Road that kind of rise and fall.
但我确实认为西欧是不同的，因为正如我们之前讨论过的，在西罗马帝国崩溃之后。
But I do think Western Europe is different because I do think that it's, you know, we've already talked about this, in the wake of the the collapse of the empire and the Roman empire in the West.
在西欧，从未有任何一个统一政权能够长期稳固地建立起来。
A unitary power never really succeeds in establishing itself for a lengthy period of time in in Western Europe.
因此，对于欧洲人来说，这种‘应存在一系列相互竞争的国家’的观念已经根深蒂固。
And so for Europeans, the assumption is kind of hardwired that, as you say, that there should be a kind of patchwork of of competing states.
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然而，他们正试图传达一种信息，也就是说，如今欧洲传递的信息是，这条路会导致灾难和世界大战。
And yet and yet, they're trying to get I mean, the Europeans have the the the message you get from Europe now is that's the road to disaster and world war.
还有，盖弗·霍夫施塔特，这位自视为欧洲统一倡导者、比利时欧洲议会议员，对我来说简直是源源不断的素材。
And, you know, Giever Hofstadt, the the sort of who sees himself clearly as the kind of count cavort of of European unification, the Belgian MEP, for me, the gift that keeps on giving.
他说，欧洲应该成为一个帝国。
He says, you know, Europe should be an empire.
我们生活在一个帝国的世界里，欧盟也应该成为一个帝国，我们应该摒弃这些琐碎的民族差异。
We live in a world of empires, and the European Union should be an empire, and we should put aside all these petty national differences.
这正是《罗马条约》和欧洲统一背后的一种假设。
And that is the kind of assumption of the Treaty of Rome and European unification.
对吧？
Right?
日益紧密的联盟。
Ever closer union.
所以，让我们建立一个帝国。
So let's build an empire.
我认为，欧洲内部促进各国分裂、使欧洲统一努力瓦解的进程，与将它们凝聚在一起的冲动一样持续存在。
I think the processes within Europe that encourage, you know, states to fissure, attempts to construct European unity to to fall apart, are as constant as the impulse to kind of bring them together.
而且，这种协同效应从未真正出现过。
And there's never really been a kind of synergy.
也就是说，对我们欧洲人而言，现在最大的问题是：欧洲能否维持统一？
I mean so this is the huge question for us now as Europeans is, will the European hold together?
你知道，这是否是一种新的秩序？
You know, is is is it a kind of new order?
碎片化的时代已经结束了吗？
Has that age of fragmentation gone?
但悖论在于，即使欧洲人正在全球范围内推动这种模式——体现在联合国中——这种关于人们应该如何组织自身的欧洲理念，根植于欧洲的民族国家观念，而这一观念正是通过欧洲殖民主义传播到世界各地的。
But the the paradox is that even as Europeans are trying to do this across the globe as reflected in the United Nations is a European assumption about how peoples should organize themselves that is absolutely rooted in the European idea of nation states and which was spread around the world by European colonialism.
因此，如今中东被分割成众多国家的拼图，而不再是帝国——这是自阿契美尼德王朝（第一个波斯帝国）以来的首次——其原因正是欧洲殖民主义。
So the reason that the Middle East now is divided up into a patchwork of nations and does you know, is not an empire, basically, for the first time since since since the Achaemenid era of the year, the first Persian empire, is because of European colonialism.
而西方反帝国主义的巨大悖论在于，它本质上是极其西方化的，无法剥离其西方属性。
And the para the, you know, the huge paradox of kind of anti imperialism in the West is that it's incredibly and irreducibly Western.
是的。
It's Yeah.
这是圣经传统与古典传统的融合。
It's it's this fusion of biblical, classical traditions melded together.
在我看来，去殖民化某种东西本质上是让它更加西方化。
And to decolonize something is basically to make it more Western, it seems to me.
我认为这是一个非常好的观点。
That's I think that's I think that's a very good point.
但我也认为，未来可能并不属于民族国家，因为中国实际上是一个帝国。
But also, I think it may not be that the future belongs to nation states because, of course, China is effectively an empire.
我认为美国也是一个帝国。
The United States, I would argue, is an empire.
俄罗斯也是一个帝国。
Russia is an empire.
所以，认为我们生活在一个后帝国时代的想法，我认为是一种幻想。
So the idea that we're living in a post imperial age, I think, is a fantasy.
总之，我们完全没谈到问题。
Anyway, we have completely failed to get into the questions.
是的。
Yes.
那么，我们选一个问题吧，多米尼克。
So so far as choose a question, Dominic.
那我干脆先回答第一个，来自graphitology的问题。
Well, why don't I just go for the first one, which is from graphitology.
他谈到了大英帝国，而我们之前根本没怎么讨论过这个话题，这也不是一个关于大英帝国的播客，但我认为我们可以就它问一两个问题。
So he's talking about the British empire, which we haven't really talked about at all, and it's not a podcast about the British empire, but I suppose we can do a question or two on it.
Graphitology说，关于大英帝国，我很想听听你们对英国文化中对其看法如何从正面转变为负面的看法，而许多前大英帝国国家的人却对那段时光怀有美好的回忆。
Graphitology says, on the subject of the British empire, I'd love to hear your thoughts about how the perception of it has changed from a good thing to a bad thing in British culture, whereas many in British previous British Empire countries have fond recollections of those times.
真的吗？
Do they?
你想要吗？嗯，我觉得我不确定。
Do you want well, I think I don't know.
我的看法是，前殖民地的人们根本不太关心大英帝国，因为他们太忙于过自己的生活了。
I mean, I I I my take on this is that people in previous colonies of the empire don't really think about the British empire very much at all because they're too busy getting on with their lives.
我们听到声音的，往往是那些特别有政治意识或对如今日益遥远的过去特别感兴趣的人。
The people we hear from are people who are unusually politicized or who are unusually interested in what is now the increasingly distant past.
我认为，如果你看最近的民调，英国人既不太自豪，也不太自我谴责。
I don't think the British if you look at recent polls, we're neither unusually proud nor unusually self flagellating.
是荷兰人吧？
It's the Dutch, isn't it?
荷兰人对他们的帝国异常自豪。
The Dutch kind of insanely proud of their empire.
是的。
Yeah.
我的意思是，我觉得这些民调有点荒谬，因为我觉得大多数人根本不在乎是好是坏。
I I mean, I always think, you know, these polls are a bit ridiculous because I just don't think most people give a damn one way the other.
他们根本不太会去想这件事。
They don't think about it very much.
二十世纪中期进行过一些出色的调查，那时正值大英帝国的巅峰时期，调查会问人们能说出哪些英国殖民地或属地。
There were brilliant surveys done in the mid twentieth century, so around about the high point of our empire, and they would ask people to name colonies or name possessions of the British empire.
人们最常能说出的通常是苏格兰。
The most common one that you knew people knew usually in was Scotland.
我觉得像林肯郡这样的地方也曾排进前十。
And and I think someone like Lincolnshire was in the top 10.
这说明了人们究竟有多不在意或不了解大英帝国。
So that tells you how much people, I think, ever really cared about British Empire or or knew about it.
所以
So
但那是一种模糊而笼统的感觉，觉得它是个好事，对吧？
But that was a kind of vague and co ed sense that it was a good thing, wasn't it?
这种想法一直隐隐存在于我的脑海里。
Kind of lurking in the back of my mind.
你看，我的看法是，人们根本不在乎这个帝国。
You see, my my take on this, right, which we should get into in another podcast, is that people didn't give a damn about the empire.
他们喜欢成为头号强国。
They liked being top nation.
他们喜欢这种地位。
They liked status.
但这种地位是否涉及某个特定殖民地，或者控制某条海上航线，他们根本不知道，也完全不在乎。
But whether that status involved a particular colony or, you know, control of a given sea lane or I mean, they didn't know what was going on, and they they couldn't really care less.
他们只是喜欢那种权力和声望的表象。
They just liked the impression of power and prestige.
我认为这一直是欧洲殖民者真正关心的。
I think that's what has always mattered to to European colonialists.
当然，还有金钱，远比那种我怀疑人们从未真正纠结过的帝国细枝末节重要。
And, of course, money, far more than the sort of I don't think people ever obsessed about the nitty gritty of their empires.
但我认为，在英国帝国扩张和统治的整个时期，一直伴随着一种观念，即英国人认为这是错误的。
But I think also running with that, right the way through the period of British imperial expansion and rule, is the sense that it that British people have that it's wrong.
所以，在帝国的鼎盛时期，这种争论一直存在。
So Well, they were in the hay day of Always argument.
总是有一种焦虑感。
Always kind of anxiety about it.
我认为，这也正是英国人向外输出的一部分。
And I think that, you know, that that is also part of what the British export.
所以我正在读C。
So I was reading C.
L。
L.
R。
R.
詹姆斯的《板球之外》一书，他是一位非常反帝国主义的马克思主义者。
James' book on cricket beyond the boundary, and he's writing as as a Marxist who's very, very anti imperial.
但显而易见的是，这是一本极其英国化的书。
And yet what what's manifest is it's incredibly British book.
它完全浸润在英国文学中，对板球及其方方面面都极为痴迷。
It's absolutely saturated in English literature and, you know, obsessed with cricket, with with everything about it.
而如今读它时，它对英国的评价却带着一种当今很少有英国人会有的正面态度。
And reading it now, it's it's kind of positive about Britain in a way that very few British people today are.
我认为，这恰恰揭示了反帝国主义如何以一种悖论的方式，也被英国人所输出，正如帝国主义本身一样。
And I think that it it kind of points to the way in which anti imperialism paradoxically was something that was exported by the British as well as as as well as imperialism.
甚至像弗朗茨·法农这样的人，某种程度上是反殖民主义的伟大代言人，出生并成长于法国加勒比殖民帝国，他的思想也深深浸染着源自……
And even even as someone like Frans Fanon, you know, who's in in a way the kind of the great the great spokesman for anticolonialism, born in and raised in, the the the French Caribbean Empire, he is saturated in, philosophical assumptions that derive from
哦，胡志明？
Oh, Ho Chi Minh?
是的。
Yeah.
哦，胡志明。
Oh, Ho Chi Minh.
没错。
Yes.
同样的。
The same.
是的。
Yeah.
是的。
Yeah.
我认为胡志明曾作为厨师在勒科夫耶手下工作。
Ho Chi Minh worked as a chef, I believe, under Lescoffier.
是的。
Yes.
话题。
Subject.
那是另一个播客该讨论的独立话题。
That's that's a separate subject for another podcast.
那么我们继续下一个问题，这个问题来自汤姆·肖。
So let's move on to another question, which is on this sort of gram, which is from Tom Shaw.
汤姆·肖说，我们试图正视帝国遗产——其中许多是创伤性的——却被我们对古代帝国的玫瑰色幻想所削弱。
Tom Shaw says, our attempts to come to a to terms with their imperial legacy, much of it traumatic, undermined by our rose tinted view of ancient empires.
对汤姆·肖来说，印度有幸被我们殖民这一令人费解的想法，无疑源于对罗马统治的错位感激。
The baffling idea, to Tom Shaw anyway, that India was lucky to be colonized by us surely stems from a place of misplaced gratitude for Roman rule.
然后他说，很棒的播客。
And then he says, great pod.
嗯，你知道，如果只谈英国，我认为我们对罗马帝国的态度非常矛盾，因为十九世纪和二十世纪的英国人，他们认同的是谁？
Well, I I you know, to to stick to Britain, I I think that our attitudes to the Roman Empire, again, are incredibly paradoxical because for for British people in the nineteenth and twentieth century, who are they identifying with?
他们是认同不列颠人，还是认同罗马人？
Are they identifying with the Britons, or are they identifying with the Romans?
所以在议会大厦外，威斯敏斯特桥旁边，有一座布狄卡的雕像，她的名字意为‘胜利’，与维多利亚同源。
So outside, the houses of parliament next to Westminster Bridge, you have a statue of Boudicca who whose name means victory, say Victoria.
因此，她成为英国女王的象征，唤起了不列颠人注定统治与战斗的观念。
So she's an emblem of the British queen, member of you know, summoning up the idea that, the Britons are are are destined to rule and to fight.
但当然，布狄卡本身就是反抗帝国权力的叛乱者。
But, of course, Boudicca is is a a a rebel against imperial power.
同时，英国人也有一种认同罗马人的倾向。
And there is a sense as well that the British identify with the Romans.
这种痛苦而矛盾的感觉，我认为至今仍然非常强烈
And that kind of tortured, conflicted sense is, I think, still very much
存在于我们身上。
with us.
我们是不是把布狄卡和不列颠尼亚混为一谈了？
We're kinda conflated, Boudicca and Britannia, haven't we?
所以，你以前在50便士硬币上看到的不列颠尼亚形象——那种罗马或希腊风格的头盔、盾牌等等。
So the image of Britannia that you used used to be on the 50 p, the sort of the Roman or Greek helmet and the shield and all that sort of stuff.
在公众心目中，我认为它们基本上是一回事。
In the public mind, I think they're kind of the same.
它们融合成了一种类似伊丽莎白一世的形象，一种女性化的英国化身，既反抗外来帝国主义，自身又是帝国主义者。
They sort of merge into this sort of Elizabeth I type, this sort of feminine personification of Britain, which is both fighting foreign imperialists and an imperialist in and of itself.
好吧，但为了进一步探讨这一点，
Well, I but but just to follow-up on that,
我认为这反映了罗马帝国主义的现实：不列颠尼亚的首个形象是一位被皇帝克劳狄乌斯强暴的女性。
I think it's a commentary on the reality of Roman imperialism that the first representation of Britannia shows her as a woman being raped by the emperor Claudius.
哦。
Oh.
所以这并不会导致
So that doesn't doesn't tend to feed
不，不会。
on No.
我不会继续下去。
The I wouldn't go on.
你选一个问题。
You choose a question.
有一个关于基督教的问题，我猜你不想让我问。
Well, there's one about Christianity, which I I suspect you don't want me to.
我们不想，我们跳过这个问题。
We don't want We'll skip over that one.
太快了。
Too fast.
这是来自乔治·埃林厄姆的一个问题。
Here's one from George Ellingham.
那些意图长久存在的帝国，是希望成为一个单一的联邦国家，比如中国和苏联，还是这种模式更现代？
Do empires that intend to last aspire to become a single nation federal state, I e, China and The Soviet Union, or is this a more modern nation?
哦，这是个好问题。
Oh, that's a good question.
这是一个极好的问题。
That is an excellent question.
它们有这种愿望吗？
Do they aspire to that?
我认为最初可能并没有，但确实会出现这种情况，比如俄罗斯，你就经历过某种‘俄罗斯化’的时刻，如果这个词成立的话。
I think probably not at first, though you do get so for example, with Russia, you had you've had moments of kind of Russification, if that's a word.
这种趋势通常是试图让省份，比如波罗的海国家或乌克兰，俄罗斯化，把它们视为俄罗斯的‘小兄弟’，并消除民族差异。
And the sort of tendency was to try and Russify provinces, let's say the Baltic States or Ukraine, and to see them as kind of Russia's little brothers and to eradicate kind of national differences.
但有趣的是，俄罗斯至今仍是一个相当分裂的国家。
Though it's interesting with Russia, how you know, Russia is still quite a sort of fragmented country.
从政治上看，你知道，如果你看地图，它的结构仍然遵循着旧有的模式，比如鞑靼斯坦、卡尔梅克共和国和高加索地区。
It's politically, you know, if you look at the map, the way it's structured, it it still sort of follows old patterns, and you have Tatarstan and so on, Kalmykia, and the Caucasus.
我的意思是，高加索地区很好地说明了你无法简单地强加一种帝国印记，把所有人都变成小俄罗斯人。
I mean, the Caucasus is a very good example of how you can't just impose a kind of imperial stamp and and and turn everybody into little Russians.
但高加索地区是多山的。
But Caucasus is mountainous.
所以这是另一个原因，没错。
So that's kind of another That's right.
你知道，帝国往往会达到某种地理边界，
You know, that that empires tend to reach geographical borders where
是的。
Yes.
没错。
Yeah.
我认为这完全正确。
I think that's absolutely right.
比如说中国。
And and you get let's say China.
我的意思是，中国是有界限的。
I mean, China has limits.
你知道，中国不可能无限扩张。
You know, China can't go on expanding forever.
我认为中国人认识到他们是有界限的。
I think the Chinese recognize they had limits.
对于那些处于帝国边缘的民族，维吾尔人显然是一个备受关注的例子，他们并不认为自己是汉族人。
With the peoples who were on the the sort of margins of their empire, the Uighurs are the obvious newsworthy example, they don't see themselves as Han Chinese.
因此，媒体上关于再教育营和洗脑的报道层出不穷，
And hence the stories that you get in in the media rec camps and about indoctrination and
所有的
all the
其他事情。
rest of it.
是的。
Yeah.
所以，是的，我认为乔治的帝国可能有这种野心，但实现它却是另一回事。
So, yeah, I think Well I think George empires may have that aspiration, but to realize it is a very different matter.
好的。
Okay.
接下来，尼尔·康诺利提出一个问题：我们什么时候不再称一个帝国为帝国？
So following that up with a question from Neil Connolly, when do we stop calling an empire an empire?
俄罗斯的大部分领土都是帝国征服的结果，但我们却欣然接受其领土属于国家的一部分。
So that's an interesting much of Russia is a result of imperial conquest, yet we happily consider its territory to be part of the state.
同样，美国西部和北爱尔兰也是如此。
Likewise, the Western USA and Northern Ireland.
实际上，不仅仅是美国西部，而是整个美国。
So, actually, not just the Western USA, the whole of The USA.
我的意思是，整个美国，整个美洲，不都是一个帝国工程吗？
I mean, the whole of The USA the whole of America is an imperial project, isn't it?
确实是。
It is.
对。
Right.
我觉得这非常奇怪。
And I think it's it's very strange.
你知道，学者们写过很多关于美国帝国和美国帝国主义的书。
You know, scholars have written books about American empire and American imperialism.
而美国人自己却抵制这种说法，因为他们的国家建国神话就像是《星球大战》中的神话——一群勇敢的反抗者对抗邪恶的银河帝国，而这个帝国就是我们自己。
And and Americans themselves resist it because, of course, their nation their sort of founding myth is the sort of Star Wars myth of, you know, plucky rebels fighting off the evil galactic empire, which is us.
所以他们否认自己帝国的本质，但毫无疑问，美国就是一个帝国。
And so they so they sort of deny their own imperial nature, but of course, The United States is an empire.
它具备帝国的所有特征。
It has all the trappings of empire.
它拥有臣民，也就是那些生活在保留地的美洲原住民。
It has subject peoples, which is to say the native Americans in their reservations.
它拥有殖民地。
It has colonies.
它拥有波多黎各，曾经拥有菲律宾。
It has Puerto Rico, and it had The Philippines.
它有帝国主义的野心和
Has imperial quests and
从墨西哥夺取的东西？
stuff taken from Mexico?
没错，它在全球各地都有军事基地。
Exactly, it's got bases all over the world.
它以一种方式施加影响，如果你是公元三世纪的罗马战略家，思考你与波斯人或北方和非洲各民族的竞争的话。
It exerts influence in a way that if you were a Roman strategist in the sort of third century, thinking about your rivalry with the Persians or with the sort of the peoples to your north and in Africa and so on.
以及你如何利用它们相互制衡，运用你的附庸国和缓冲区。
And the way in which you play those off against each other and your client states and your buffer zones.
而美国政策制定者正是这样思考的。
And that's how American policymakers think.
这就是西点军校所教授的内容。
That's what they study at West Point.
那些在华盛顿特区的外交关系委员会以及类似机构的人们，都会回望罗马，因为他们内心深处明白，他们自己也是一个帝国，就像过去的那些国家一样。
That's what the people who are in their council of foreign relations and all these things in Washington DC, they look back to Rome and because they know that deep down that they are an empire as those previous states were too.
好的。
Okay.
唐纳尔，我有个完美的后续问题要问你。
Donnell, I've got the perfect follow-up for you.
这个问题来自尼尔上校。
That one is from Colonel Neil.
我们是否可以说，今天的帝国已经不再是国家层面的，而是数字化的——比如谷歌、亚马逊、微软，当然还有脸书？
Might it be said that the empires of today exist digitally rather than nationally, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and, of course, Facebook?
因为就在我们录制这段对话时，脸书正与澳大利亚政府进行一场类似炮舰外交的对峙。
Because as we're recording this, Facebook is in a kind of, you know, gunboat diplomacy style standoff with the with the Australian government.
你对此有何看法？
What's your take on that?
问题。
Question.
因为我们有过商业公司。
Because we have had commercial.
东印度公司是典型的例子
I mean, the East India Company is the classic example
是的。
Yeah.
还有荷兰人。
And the Dutch.
一家私人公司的例子。
Of a private as a of of a company.
是的。
Yeah.
荷兰东印度公司。
The Dutch East India Company.
所以那些变成帝国的公司，但后来它们被某种传统意义上的帝国概念所吸收——我说的不是自相矛盾，但你知道我的意思。
So of companies that became empires, but then they were sort of It's interesting how they were then subsumed within the idea of a kind of traditional, I was about to say a national empire, that's not a contradiction in terms, but you know what I mean.
东印度公司基本上被英国政府接管了，或者至少它的领地是这样。
The the the East India Company was basically taken over by the British state, or at least its possessions were.
这会发生在谷歌地球这样的数字平台上吗？我的意思是。
Will that hap I mean, at Google Earth digitally.
我的意思是，这很难说，对吧？
I mean, that's very hard to say, isn't it?
我想，是精神上的帝国。
Empires of the mind, I suppose.
我记得我去过硅谷，参观了各大公司园区。
I I remember I went to Silicon Valley and, went on a tour around the kind of various campuses of the the big sites.
我想，是谷歌。
And, I can't I think it was Google.
他们有一个巨大的标志，上面写着‘谷歌’。
They had a huge, great, kind of sign with Google on it.
然后我们绕到后面看了看，后面挂着一家已经倒闭的公司。
Then And we went around and looked around the back, and it was, there on the back was some some fallen company.
它显然已经被重新利用了。
And it had obviously been re yes.
它显然已经被回收了。
It had obviously been recycled.
你知道，你可能会觉得谷歌买得起一块全新的招牌。
And, you know, you imagine Google could afford a fresh could afford a fresh sun.
但那已经是差不多一年前的事了。
But it's it's almost a year ago.
所以这一定是故意的，像是对那个已覆灭的帝国的一种践踏，就像是一种……
So it must have been deliberate, a kind of trampling on the grave of the, of the fallen empire, which is, like, kind of a
神话般的什么的。
mythic or something.
是的。
Yes.
好的。
Okay.
这是卢卡斯·罗斯发来的。
Here's one from Lucas Roth.
人们生活在
Were people living in
帝国里，你要问卢卡斯·罗斯。
empires you're gonna ask Lucas Roth.
人们生活在帝国里，是的。
Were people live yeah.
生活在帝国里的人，比起生活在帝国之外的人，过得更好吗？——用引号来说。
Were people in empires living in empires better off, in inverted commas, than people living outside the empire?
也就是说，这让我们回到了之前讨论的很多内容。
That is, you know, that takes us back to quite a lot of what we've been talking about.
嗯，这取决于你指的是哪个帝国。
Well, it depends on your empire.
对吧？
Right?
我的意思是，如果你生活在比属刚果，我会说生活在那个领土之外更好，因为你不想因为没收集到足够的橡胶之类的东西而被砍掉双手。
I mean, if you're living in the Belgian Congo, I I would say it's preferable to be living outside the borders of that particular territory because you don't wanna have your hands cut off cause you haven't collected enough rubber or whatever.
你生活在罗马帝国或波斯帝国境内，比生活在帝国之外更好吗？
Were you better off to be in the Roman empire than outside it or the Persian empire than outside it, let's say?
我的回答可能是肯定的，因为我觉得帝国能为你提供机会——当然，如果你不幸，生活在帝国下也会很艰难，但如果你幸运，比如有天赋，你就能获得晋升、旅行和经济繁荣的机会，而这些可能是你生在日耳曼森林里根本得不到的。
I mean, my answer to that would probably be yes, because I think Empire offered you, mean, obviously if you're unfortunate, things are pretty rough under Empire's, but if you're fortunate, if you're blessed by talent, for example, you have opportunities for advancement, for travel, for economic prosperity and so on, that you probably wouldn't get if you were born in the sort of Germanic forests.
也许这只是偏见在作祟。
Now maybe that's just prejudice talking
对你来说。
to you.
你怎么看？
What do you think?
我认为，再次强调，像中国、罗马这样的大型帝国，当它们达到自然边界时，征服的成本和努力就不再值得了。
Well, I think, again, we go that the great empires, the kind of transcontinental empires, China, Rome, so on, reached the natural limits where, basically, it it stops being worthwhile the the the the expense and effort of conquering.
所以当罗马人到达莱茵河时，基本上德国就不值得花费征服的成本了。
So when the Romans reach the Rhine, basically, you know, Germany is not worth the effort it's not worth the effort of conquering.
然后你就开始出现一种情况：实际上是帝国之外的人们渴望分享一点财富。
And then you start to get the situation where, actually, it's it's people beyond the empire who want a bit of the wealth.
关于五世纪期间各种民族进入帝国的角色，至今仍有激烈争论。
And the role that the the various peoples who who who cross into the empire over the course of the the fifth century is much debated.
但显然，他们确实发挥了作用，他们之所以进来，是因为他们也想分一杯羹，就像蒙古人 famously 入侵并征服中国一样——帝国之外的人们渴望帝国的财富，因为那里更富裕。
But, clearly, I mean, they have a role to play, and they're coming in because they want a bit of it in exactly the same way that the, you know, the Mongols famously, know, invade and and conquer China, that people outside want what empires have because it's richer.
这就形成了帝国的一种规律，这种规律在希罗多德、塔西佗和伊本·赫勒敦的作品中都有体现，即帝国会使人变得软弱。
And that sets up a kind of law of empire that you get in Herodotus, that you get in Tacitus, that you get in Ibn Khaldun, namely that empire softens people.
而帝国之外的人们则保留了那些原本属于帝国民族的品质——坚韧、顽强，而帝国人民自己却因为生活在帝国之中，已经失去了这些品质。
And it's people outside empires who are left you know, who who are tough, are who are hardy, who, have the virtues that the original imperial peoples had, but have now lost because they've come, you know
这正是斯巴达式的自我形象。
That's the sort of Spartan self image.
对吧？
Right?
是的。
Yes.
斯巴达人对抗波斯人，或者
Spartan versus the Persians or
某种情况。
something.
因此，希腊人、罗马人以及帝国时代的阿拉伯人都有一种自我认知，认为自己是尚武的民族，比他们所征服的软弱民族更有资格统治。
So so, the the Greeks, the Romans, the Arabs of the imperial age all have a kind of sense of themselves as a martial people who are better qualified for rule than the the soft peoples that they conquer.
但随着时间推移，他们建立的帝国自身也逐渐变得柔弱、奢靡，最终沦为边境蛮族的猎物。
But in due course, the empires that they establish, you know, they become kind of silken and soft in turn and then become prey to the barbarians beyond the border.
所有这些来自不同时期的作家都将此视为帝国的一种普遍规律。
And this is seen by all these writers writing very different periods as a kind of, you know, the the rule of empire.
我并不会感到惊讶。
And I would I would not be surprised.
我对中国的了解不够，不确定中国是否也存在类似的观点。
I don't know enough about China to know whether the same thing is identified in China.
我猜这很可能确实如此。
I would guess it it it probably is.
但这正是美国人现在所说的：他们变得分心、自我放纵，陷入一种内省和争吵的萎靡状态，失去了开国元勋或最伟大一代所拥有的斯巴达式共和美德，诸如此类的说法。
But it's exactly what Americans say right now, that they've become distracted, self indulgent, they're sunk in a kind of malaise of introspection and quarreling, and that they've lost the Spartan Republican virtues of the founding fathers and and all this sort of stuff or or of the greatest generation.
所以，这种陈词滥调依然存在，是的。
So that that trope is still there in Yeah.
体现在美国人谈论他们的帝国的方式中。
In the way that Americans talk about their empire.
好的。
Okay.
我觉得我们只是浅尝辄止，我的意思是，我们才刚刚触及皮毛。
I think I think we've I mean, we've barely scratched the surface.
我们可以聊上好几个小时，但这个播客的政策必须是不能喧宾夺主。
We could talk about this for hours and hours, but, it it's a policy must be a policy of this podcast not to outstay our welcome.
所以，多米尼克，最后一个问题来自戴维·尼科尔森。
So just one last question for you, Dominic, from, David Nicholson.
所有帝国的鼎盛时期都持续大约两百年，这个说法有历史依据吗？
Is there historic historical veracity to the claim that all empires' day in the sun lasts around two hundred years?
我问这个问题，不仅因为问题本身很有趣，更因为这种观点暗示着可能存在类似自然法则的东西，支配着帝国的兴衰——我们能否说帝国确实有其自然的极限？
And I ask that not just because the question in itself is interesting, but because of the the idea that there might be kind of almost equivalent of biological laws that govern empires, can we, you know, can we say that empires do have a a natural limit?
你怎么看？
What do you think?
我认为没有，两百年这个说法完全站不住脚，我认为帝国根本没有这样的极限。
I would say no, and I don't think that two hundred years works at all, and I don't think there is a limit.
比如中国，我们之前做过一整期关于中国的节目，而中国恰恰是对这种说法的有力反驳。
So China, we had a whole podcast on China, and China is the standing rebuke to that.
我知道有人讨论过，中国究竟是始终如一的同一个实体，还是在同一片土地上不断更替的多个政权？
Now I know there was this discussion about is China, has it always been one thing or has it been a succession of things on the same space?
但我认为，它一直占据着同一片地理空间，这表明了连续性，也说明帝国是可以长期维持的。
But I think that it had the fact that it has inhabited the same space suggests continuity and suggests that you can keep it up.
举个例子，人们常常忘记的一些帝国，比如奥斯曼帝国，或者它的前身——我们现在称为拜占庭帝国的东罗马帝国。
I mean, you take some of the empires that people often forget about, we mentioned the Ottoman Empire or its predecessor, the Eastern Roman Empire, which we now call the Byzantine Empire.
我们讲述罗马的故事，说罗马在四月灭亡了。
We tell the story of Rome and we say, well, then the Rome fell in April.
然后，东方出现了一个继承国，但没人关心它，它渐渐消失了。
And then basically, there was a successor state in the East, but no one cares about that, and it kind of went away.
但它持续了一千年，是一个极其坚韧和成功的国家，遭受过许多不同掠夺者和征服者的攻击，却存续了很长时间。
And but that lasted a thousand years, and it was a remarkably resilient and successful state, attacked by lots of different predators and would be conquerors, and it lasted a very long time.
奥斯曼帝国的存续时间比大英帝国、法兰西帝国或其他任何帝国都更长。
The Ottoman Empire lasted longer than the British Empire, the French Empire or whatever.
所以我认为帝国可以持续数个世纪。
So I think empires can last for centuries.
我认为实际上并不存在所谓的熵增规律，中国或俄罗斯的例子表明，这种衰败趋势并非必然。
And I don't think there is actually a you know, the example of China or indeed Russia suggests that there isn't necessarily always this kind of sense of entropy.
你知道，你不必分崩离析。
You know, you don't have to fall apart.
并没有什么生物学上的规律规定你到了某个点就无法再扩张。
There is no biological there's a point at which you can't expand.
我认为这确实是对的。
I think that's certainly true.
不过，也许这种关于扩张的规律只适用于数字时代之前，因为当时受限于交通和通信等因素。
Although maybe that law about expansion only applied in a pre digital age because of transport and communications and so on.
也许，在二十一世纪或二十二世纪，出现一个真正庞大帝国的机会是存在的。
Maybe, you know, the chance of a of a really big empire is there in the twenty first or twenty second century.
你怎么看？
What do you think?
我不知道未来会怎样。
I don't I don't know what the future holds.
深刻的话。
Profound words.
我知道。
I know.
我知道。
I know.
我说这个是因为你说得对，我不确定技术带来的机会是否会促进社会结构和不同等级制度等新形式的出现。
And I I say that because I I you're right that I don't know whether the opportunities presented by technology will facilitate the emergence of of new ways of structuring societies and and different hierarchies and things like that.
我的意思是，我们还没怎么讨论技术在帝国崛起中的作用。
I mean, we haven't really talked about the role that technology plays in No.
在帝国的崛起中。
In the emergence of empires.
这可能是未来某个播客的话题。
And that that may be, you know, something for a for a future podcast.
我的意思是，这很好。
I mean, it is good.
我不知道。
I I don't know.
我的意思是，看看中国，它在利用技术巩固对边远地区的统治方面展现了惊人的能力。
I mean, I and looking at China and the the incredible skill with which it's utilizing technology to, you know, entrench its its its rule over the kind of peripheral regions.
我看不出维吾尔人近期能摆脱中国帝国统治的可能。
I I don't see the Uighurs breaking free of Chinese imperial rule anytime soon.
所以我真的无法回答这个问题。
So I I I wouldn't be able to answer that, really.
不过，这里有一个面向未来的想法。
Here's a forward looking thought though.
我们之前谈到了欧洲，以及西罗马帝国崩溃后，单一国家未能主导欧洲半岛的情况。
We talked about Europe earlier and about the failure of a single state to dominate the European sort of peninsula after the fall of the Western Roman Empire.
当然，未来一百年左右，欧洲爱好者们的梦想是会出现一个单一国家。
Surely the chance now, in the next one hundred years or so, I mean, the dream of European enthusiasts is that there will be a single state.
欧盟将成为一个名副其实的帝国，跨越国界，这在十七、十八或十九世纪是完全不可想象或不可能的。
The European Union will become this empire in all but name, crossing national boundaries in a way that simply would not have been conceivable or possible in the seventeenth or eighteenth or nineteenth centuries.
所以对我来说，认为帝国时代已经过去，或者帝国本身有内在限制，或者有些地方天然抗拒帝国的想法。
So the idea to me, the idea that the age of empires is behind us or that empires indeed have this sort of inbuilt limits, or there are places that are naturally resistant to empires.
我并不认同这些观点。
I I don't really buy any of that.
嗯，这是一个令人振奋的结论，不过这取决于
Well, that's a cheery nation on which to on which Well, it depends
如果你喜欢帝国的话。
if you like empires.
就此结束吧。
On which to end.
而且，我认为，从这次讨论中我们意识到，还有很多话题可以延伸出后续的播客。
And, I think, also, you know, what we've realized from from this discussion is that there's fruit for large numbers of subsequent podcasts.
我们已经做了大约4%的问题，这在我们自己的标准下几乎是微不足道的。
We've we've done about we've done about 4% of the questions, which is basically by our own standards.
非常非常抱歉。
Many many apologies there.
但我认为这个话题 definitely 值得回头再探讨，也许可以聚焦得更窄一些。
But I think this is a subject definitely to come back to, perhaps with a slightly narrower focus.
好的。
Alright.
所以，制作人给我写了一段非常精彩的结语，我想读一下，因为它在我脑海中勾勒出一幅美好的画面。
So I have a very nicely written conclusion here by the producer, which I want to read because it conjures up to me a very nice image.
帝国已经覆灭。
The empire has fallen.
汤姆·霍兰德被愤怒的当地人赶走了，这个播客现在回到了它合法的主人——我手中。
Tom Holland has been chased out by angry locals, and the podcast has been returned to its rightful ruler, me.
我们周四将再次回归，邀请历史学家兼电视主持人苏西·利普斯科姆，深入探讨女巫与巫术的黑暗世界。
We're back on Thursday with historian and TV presenter Susie Lipscomb as we are delving into the dark world of witches and witchcraft.
在此之前，感谢您的收听。
Until then, thanks for listening.
下次见。
See you next time.
感谢收听《历史其余部分》。
Thanks for listening to The Rest is History.
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For bonus episodes, early access, ad free listening, and access to our chat community, please sign up at restishistorypod.com.
网址是 restishistorypod.com。
That's restishistorypod.com.
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