大国的兴衰

公元1500年前的几百年中，伊斯兰世界一直在文化和技术上超过欧洲。它的城市很大，具有良好的照明和排水设施，其中有些城市设有大学、图书馆和美丽壮观的清真寺。

中国倒退的一个重要原因完全是儒家官吏的保守思想作祟，这种保守思想到了明代因对蒙古人过去强加给他们的变化的憎恨而愈益严重。在这种“复旧”的气氛中，整个上层官吏关心的是维持和恢复旧秩序，而不是在向海外扩张和进行海外贸易的基础上创造更加灿烂的未来。

苏联1941年生产的飞机比德国多4000架，1942年多一万多架。并且苏联是在一条战线作战，而德国是三线作战，凭借兵力、坦克、火炮、飞机日益增大的数量优势，从战争的第二年起红军事实上就能承受5:1~6:1的损失，以及击退兵力日衰的德军。到1945年初，仅在白俄罗斯和乌克兰战线，苏联的力量就已经占压倒优势，在兵力上5倍于敌，装甲车辆5倍于敌，火炮和飞机方面分别是7倍多和17倍。假如尼米兹在1942年中途岛海战中损失1艘以上的航空母舰，他在同一年即可得到3艘新型舰队航母、3艘轻型舰队航母和15艘护航航母；1943年可得到5艘舰队航母、6艘轻型舰队航母、25艘护航航母；1944年还可得到9艘舰队航母和35艘护航航母。同样，在紧张的几年大西洋之战中，同盟国在1942年和1943年分别损失了总计为830万吨和400万吨的船只，但这一巨大损失却分别得到了同盟国新下水的700万吨和900万吨新商船的补偿。这主要归功于以惊人的速度增长的美国造船能力。事实上，到1943—1944年，仅美国一国就已能每天建造1艘军舰，每5分钟生产1架飞机!此外，同盟国还生产了许多新式武器（如“超级堡垒”式轰炸机、“野马”式战斗机、轻型舰队航母等），而轴心国只能生产少量先进武器（如喷气式战斗机、德国U-23型潜艇）。

This difficulty would be compounded, it seems fair to argue, because moving up that ladder would have involved not merely the acquisition of Eropean equipment or even of European techniques; it would also have implied a wholesale borrowing of those general features which distinguished the societies of the West from all the others. It would have meant the existence of a market economy, if not to the extent proposed by Adam Smith then at least to the extent that merchants and entrepreneurs would not be consistently deterred,obstructed, and preyed upon. It would also have meant the existence of a plurality of power centers, each if possible with its own economic base, so that there was no prospect of the imposed centralization of a despotic oriental-style regime - and every prospect of the progressive, if turbulent and occasionally brutal stimulus of competition.By extension, this lack of economic and political rigidity would imply a similar lack of cultural and ideological orthodoxy - that is, a freedom to inquire, to dispute, to experiment, a belief in the possibilities of improvement, a concern for the practical rather than the abstract, a rationalism which defied mandarin codes, religious dogma, and traditional folklore.In most cases, what was involved was not so much positive elements, but rather the reduction in the number of hindrances which checked economic growth and political diversity. Europe's greatest advantage was that it had fewer disadvantages than the other civilizations.