人类史上十个最伟大时期
Ten Great Moments in the (Recorded) History of Civilization. The ten periods of history which saw the most rapid advances in human achievement or quality of life. These are all events that have contributed to the forming of society as we know it today – even though many were from the far distant past.
本文阐述的是人类历史进程中最伟大的十个时期。这是人类发展和生活质量提高最快的十个时期，其间的重大事件尽管已经距今甚遥，却依然对当下的社会形态具有重大影响。
10. Renaissance 文艺复兴 （1483-1513）
The artistic Renaissance began earlier, but during this 20-year period Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael, Durer, and Botticelli created many of the world’s most famous paintings: The Last Supper, Mona Lisa, the Sistine Chapel, the Raphael Rooms, the Pieta, the Sistine Madonna, The Birth of Venus. The European discovery of the New World was also a rather big deal.
艺术文艺复兴的开端较早，但在这20年间里，达芬奇、米开朗基罗、拉斐尔、杜勒和波提且利等等著名画家创作了大量世界著名绘画：《最后的晚餐》《蒙娜丽莎》《西斯廷教堂》《拉斐尔画室》《圣母悼子》《西斯廷圣母》《维纳斯的诞生》。此外，欧洲对于新世界的探索也是人类史上的重大事件。
9. Roman Republic and Empire 罗马共和国和罗马帝国 （公元前100年-公元100年）
The rap on the Romans is they stole their culture from Greece, but it’s not really true. The Romans borrowed freely from the Greeks but excelled in different fields — engineering, architecture, satire, and ethics (the Stoic tradition peaked in Rome, a little later, with the writings of Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius). No other society except Greece (and perhaps England or China) ever made greater cultural contributions. At about the same time, Chinese culture reached its greatest geographic extent with the Han Empire.
人们往往指责罗马人偷盗了希腊文化，但其实这并非事实。罗马人自由地借鉴希腊文明，但却更擅长于一些的领域——工程学、建筑学、讽刺文学和伦理学（稍后的时期里，禁欲主义通过埃皮克提图（Epictetus）和马克 奥里利乌斯（Marcus Aurelius）的著作在罗马达到顶峰）。除了希腊（也许还有英格兰或者中国）之外，没有任何的社会为文化做出了如此巨大的贡献。几乎同时，中国汉朝文化延伸了其最大的地理版图。
8. Biological Science 生物科学 （1855-1866）
Darwin’s theory of natural selection and Pasteur’s germ theory revolutionized biology and medicine; Lister introduced sterilization in hospitals, and Mendel (pictured above) conducted the first experiments in heritability (though not widely known until later). There were milestones in many other arenas: Maxwell described electromagnetic fields and radiation; and the first internal combustion engine, gas heater, commercial steel, plastics, and rechargeable battery were produced.
达尔文的自然选择理论和巴斯德的微生物理论变革了生物学和医学；利斯特在医院中引入了杀菌，而孟德尔（上图人物）进行了第一次遗传实验（尽管当时并不很有名）。在其他的领域中也出现了许多里程碑：麦克斯韦描述了电磁场和辐射；而第一座内燃机、蒸汽加热器、商业钢铁工业、塑料工业和可充电电池也在这一时期开始生产。
7. Age of Invention 发明时代 （1870-1890）
These two decades saw the invention of electric light, alternating current, the telephone, automobile, steam turbine, gas turbine, water heater, transformer, arc welding, phonograph and seismograph; development of vaccination and surgical techniques; Boltzmann’s development of thermodynamics and statistical mechanics; production of radio waves; the birth of the environmental conservation movement; and artworks by Rodin, Monet, Brahms, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Eliot, Chekhov and Twain.
这二十年见证了电灯、交流电、电话、汽车、蒸汽涡轮、瓦斯涡轮、热水器、变压器、电弧焊、照片和地震仪的发明；疫苗接种和外科手术的发展；玻尔兹曼热力学和统计力学的发展；无线电波的使用；环保行动的诞生；罗丁、莫奈、勃拉姆斯、陀斯妥也夫斯基、托尔斯泰、埃利奥特、契诃夫和马克吐翁的艺术创作。
6. Astronomy, Mechanics, Literature 天文学、力学、文学 （1580-1610）
This 30-year period saw revolutionary change on all fronts. Galileo’s telescope and Kepler’s planetary theory were the birth of modern astronomy; Galileo’s De motu launched classical physics; literature took big steps forward with Cervantes’ Don Quixote (the earliest novel still widely read) and Montaigne’s Essays (which created that genre), and a guy named Shakespeare turned out a bunch of sonnets, plus Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth and the rest. Islamic architecture reached a late peak in Isfahan and Istanbul.
这三十年见证了所有前沿事物的革命性变革。伽利略的望远镜和开普勒的行星理论是现代天文学的起源；伽利略的《论运动》开启了经典物理学；文学也取得了跨越式的进展，代表著作包括塞万提斯的堂吉诃德（至今依然被广泛阅读的最古老小说）、蒙田的随笔（创建了随笔这个文体）、莎士比亚的大量十四行诗和《哈姆雷特》《李尔王》《麦克白》等等。而伊斯兰建筑艺术在伊斯法罕和伊斯坦布尔到达了后期的顶峰。
5. Age of Newton 牛顿时代 （1660-1687）
Important discoveries happened throughout the 17th century, but the most influential scientific advance was Newton’s theory of gravity. Newton got around to publishing the Principia in 1687, but the crucial ideas came to him in the 1660s. Newton and Leibniz invented calculus about the same time. Boyle’s Law, which led to the development of chemistry, was discovered in 1662; Leeuwenhoek and others began microscopic observations at the same time. It was a fertile time for art (Rembrandt, Vermeer) and literature (Racine, Moliere, Milton, Pascal) and unfortunately, bad philosophy (Hobbes, Locke).
众多重要发现贯穿了整个十七世纪，但最具科学影响力的无疑是牛顿的万有引力理论。牛顿在1687年到处讲演他的理论，但其实他在17世纪60年代间就确立了核心思想。牛顿和莱布尼兹几乎同时发明了微积分方法。引导化学发展的波尔定律发现于1662年；列文虎克等人同时期也开始了显微镜观察。同时，当时也是艺术（伦布兰特，弗米尔）和文学（拉辛、莫里哀、米尔顿、帕斯卡）的多产期，而不幸的是，哲学（霍布斯、洛克）并不发达。
4. Industrial Revolution 工业革命 （1764-1790）
Following James Watt’s improvement of the steam engine in 1764, almost every year in the late 18th century brought a new revolution. The science of chemistry was founded by Lavoisier; Hutton introduced the principles of geology; Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations founded economics; Mozart developed the forms of classical music; Burke and Hamilton/Madison defined British-American political theory; Blackstone’s Commentaries did the same for law; photosynthesis was discovered. Technical advances included electrolysis, the ship’s chronometer, chemical processing, tool-making machines, and the water frame.
在詹姆斯 瓦特于1764年蒸汽机发明之后，18世纪末的每一年几乎都有新的重大变革。拉瓦锡创立了化学；赫胥黎提出了地理学的原理；亚当斯密的《国富论》创立了经济学；莫扎特发展了古典音乐的形式；柏克和汉密尔顿/麦迪逊定义了英美政治理论；布莱克斯通的《英格兰法律解释》发展了法理学；光合作用被发现。技术进步包括电解、船上的精密计时器、化学反应、机床和水力纺纱机等等。
3. Eastern Empires 东方帝国 （公元11至12世纪）
Chinese civilization has had several peaks but the Song Dynasty was perhaps the greatest: Zhu Xi (pictured above) established Neo-Confucianism; printing, the compass and canal locks were developed; and Chinese painting reached its apex. Meanwhile, Islamic, Indian and Southeast Asian cultures produced great achievements, from Persian poetry and math to Angkor Wat and Jain temples. Meanwhile, Europe started climbing out of the Dark Ages with the first industry and monuments such as the great medieval cathedrals and castles.
中华文明历史上经历过多次繁荣，但宋朝也许是其中的巅峰：朱熹（上图人物）创立了新儒家学说（译者：应该是指朱熹理学）；活字印刷术、指南针和运河水闸（译者：这个我们国内很少宣传）得到了发展；中国绘画艺术也达到了顶峰。同时，伊斯兰、印度和东南亚文明取得了大量的成就，从波斯诗集和数学到吴哥窟和耆那寺庙。而此时，欧洲正在走出天主教和城堡统治下的中世纪黑暗时代。
2. Mediterranean Culture 地中海文明 （公元前5世纪——4世纪）
The first great dramatists (Aeschylus, Sophocles, Aristophanes), the greatest sculptors in history(Phidias), and Socrates all lived in Athens in the 5th century BC. No other place in history produced more genius. The Greeks’ run continued in the 4th century with Plato (one of the most influential thinkers of all time) and Aristotle (the founder of ethics, political theory, natural history and logic), and mathematicians Eudoxus and Euclid. At the other end of Eurasia, Lao-tzu, Chuang-tzu and the followers of Confucius elaborated Chinese thought; the abacus and blast furnace were invented; and the Grand Canal was begun. India produced epic literature.
第一批伟大的剧作家（埃斯库罗斯、索福克勒斯、阿里斯托芬），历史上最杰出的雕刻家（菲迪亚斯），和苏格拉底都生活在公元前5世纪的雅典。历史上再也没有任何的地方能够如此地齐聚天才。希腊文化在公元前4世纪继续发展，产生了包括柏拉图（史上最具有影响力的思想家之一）、亚里斯多德（伦理学、政治理论、自然历史和逻辑学的创立者），以及数学家欧多克斯和欧几里德在内的一批著名学者。而在欧亚大陆的另一端，老子、庄子以及孔子的学生们详尽阐述了中国思想文化；算盘和炼丹炉在这一时期发明；而大运河也开始开凿。印度创立了叙事诗文学。
1. Founding of Religious Traditions 宗教文化的创立（公元前6世纪）
Confucius, Buddha, and Mahavira (the prophet of Jainism) all lived in the 6th century, though their works were compiled later (in the case of Buddha, much later). Important books of the Old Testament were written or assembled at roughly the same time. Greek culture was climbing toward its classical peak, thanks to natural philosophers (Thales, Parmenides), early political leaders (Solon), engineers (Chersiphron), and poets (Sappho, Pindar). No century is more significant for both Western and Eastern intellectual traditions.
孔子、佛祖和摩诃毗罗（耆那教的先知）都生活在公元前6世纪，尽管他们的工作在后来才慢慢被编纂完成（佛祖的著作在之后的很长时间才编纂完毕）。圣经旧约的重要篇章也大概在这个时期撰写或者编纂。希腊文化得利于自然哲学家（泰利斯、帕梅尼德斯），早期政治领袖（梭仑），工程学家（伽尔瑟夫农）、和诗人（莎孚、品达），也正在走向其古典文化的顶峰。毫无疑问，在东西方文化传统的发展史上，这是一个独一无二的世纪。
