房龙地理

出版时间：2008-5  出版社：清华大学  作者：(美)房龙|译者:刘乃亚//纪飞  页数：445  
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内容概要

《房龙地理》（Van Loon's Gecography）是一部以通俗的手法描写以人的衍动与发展为中心的世界地理巨著，它是由付兰裔美国著名历史学家、作家房龙（1882－〕1944）编著而成。在简要介绍基本地理知识之后，作者按国别或特征地理地区分别讲述了其地理环境，侧重于分析地理对国家或地区的历史演变、国家或地区性格的形成、民族特性等影响，因此这是一本关于“人的”地理书。丹麦人喜欢静谧书斋，而西班牙人则热衷于广阔的天地；日本近代疯狂地向外扩张，而国土狭小的瑞士却保持中立，等等，难道国家性格真的与国家地理有关?在本书中似乎能够找到答案。    这本中文导读英文版的经典读本，无论作为通俗的世界地理读本，还是作为语言学习的课外读物，对当代中国的读者都将产生重要的影响。为了使读者能够了解每篇故事的概况，进而提高阅读速度和阅读水平，在每篇英文故事的开始部分增加了中文导读。

书籍目录

1．我们生活的世界还生活着其他人/And These Are the People Who Live in the World We Live in	12．“地理”一词的定义以及我将在本书中如何使用它/A Definition of the Word Geography and How I Shall Apply It in the Present Volume	93．我们的行星：它的习性、风俗以及举止/Our Planet: Its Habits, Customs and Manners	124．地图。非常简洁的一章但却描述一个庞大而吸引人的话题。同时还介绍人们通过缓慢地学习如何在这个行星上找到路线的几点观察/ Maps. A very Brief Chapter upon a very Big and Fascinating Subject. Together with a Few Observations on the Way People Slowly Learned How to Find Their Way on This Planet of Ours	355．季节以及它们是怎样变化的/The Seasons and How They happen	526．想想这个星球上的小块旱地，为什么其中一些被称为洲，而另外一些却不是/ Concerning the Little Spots of Dry Land on This Planet and Why Some of Them are Called Continents While Others are not	567．关于欧洲的发现以及生活在那里的人们/ Of the Discovery of Europe and the Sort of People Who Live in That Part of the World	648．希腊，东地中海的岩石岬角，连接古老亚洲和新兴欧洲的桥梁/ Greece, the Rocky Promontory of the Eastern Mediterranean Which Acted as the Connecting Link Between the Old Asia and the New Europe	689．意大利，它的地理情况使它一旦时机成熟就能充当海上霸主或陆上霸主的角色/ Italy, the Country Which due to Its Geographical Situation Could Play the Role of a Sea-Power or a Land-Power, as the Occasion Demanded	8010．西班牙，非洲和欧洲碰撞处/Spain, Where Africa and Europe Clashed	9911．法国，拥有想要的一切的国家/ France, the Country That Has Everything It Wants	11312．比利时，纸片缔造的国家，除内部和谐，拥有一切/Belgium, A Country Created by Scraps of Paper and Rich in Everything except Internal Harmony	12813．卢森堡，历史奇迹/Luxemburg, the Historical Curiosity	13314．瑞士，高山上的国家，拥有优秀的学校和团结的国民——讲四种不同的语言/ Switzerland, the Country of High Mountains, Excellent Schools and a Unified People Who Speak Four Different Languages	13515．德国，建立得太晚的国家/Germany, the Nation That was Founded too Late	14316．奥地利，一个不受人重视的国家，除非它不再存?/Austria, the Country That Nobody Appreciated Until It noLonger Existed	15417．丹麦，某些方面小国胜过大国的典范/Denmark, An Object Lesson in Certain Advantages of Small Countries over Large Ones	15918．冰岛，北冰洋中有趣的政治实验室/Iceland, An Interesting Political Laboratory in the Arctic Ocean	16419．斯堪的纳维亚半岛，瑞典王国与挪威王国的领地/The Scandinavian Peninsula, The Territory Occupied by the Kingdoms of Sweden and Norway	16820．荷兰，北海岸堤上的沼泽，它却变成了一个帝国/The Netherlands, the Swamp On the Banks of the North Sea That Became An Empire	17921．大不列颠，荷兰海岸线外的一个岛屿，为全人类1/4的人口谋幸福/ Great Britain, An Island off the Dutch Coast Which Is Responsible For the Happiness of Fully One-Quarter of the Human Race 	18522．俄罗斯，其地理位置让人难以断定它是欧洲的一部分还是亚洲的一部分/ Russia, the Country Which Was Prevented By Its Geographical Location From Ever Finding Out Whether It Was Part of Europe Or of Asia	20723．波兰，遭受作为走廊之痛的国家，而现在却拥有自己的走廊/Poland, the Country That Had always suffered from Being a Corridor and Therefore now Has a Corridor of Its Own	22624．捷克斯洛伐克，《凡尔赛和约》的产物/Czechoslovakia, a Product of the Treaty of Versailles	23025．南斯拉夫，《凡尔赛和约》的另一个产物/Yugoslavia, Another Product of the Treaty of Versailles	23426．保加利亚，巴尔干国家中最健全者，因爱好收集蝴蝶的国王在世界?战中押错了宝而自食其果/ Bulgaria, the Soundest of All Balkan Countries, Whose Butterfly-Collecting King Bet on the Wrong Horse during the Great War and Suffered the Consequences	23827．罗马尼亚，拥有石油和皇室的国家/Romania, a Country Which Has Oil and a Royal Family	24328．匈牙利，或它的那些遗物/Hungary, or What Remains of It	24629．芬兰，另一个通过智慧和勤奋战胜恶劣自然环境的例子/Finland, Another Example of What Hard Work and Intelligence can Achieve amid Hostile Natural Surroundings	25030．亚洲的发现/The Discovery of Asia	25331．对于世界其他地方而言，亚洲意味着什么/What Asia has Meant to the Rest of the World	25832．中亚高地/The Central Asiatic Highlands	26133．亚洲西部大高原/The Great Western Plateau of Asia	27034．阿拉伯，何时是亚洲的一部分，何时又不是/Arabia—or When is a Part of Asia not a Part of Asia	28535．印度，自然和人类同时在从事大规模生产的地方/　　India, Where Nature and Man are Engaged in Mass-Production	29036．占据另一个南亚大半岛的缅甸、泰国、安南以及马六甲/Burma, Siam, Anam and Malacca, Which Occupy the Other Great Southern Peninsula of Asia	30237．中国，东亚大半岛/The Republic of China, the Great Peninsula of Eastern Asia	30838．朝鲜、蒙古/Korea, Mongolia	32539．日本帝国/The Japanese Empire	32940．菲律宾，墨西哥的古老辖地/The Philippines, an old Administrative Part of Mexico	34241．荷属东印度，尾大不掉/The Dutch East Indies, the Tail That Wags the Dog	34642．澳大利亚，大自然的养子/Australia, the Step-Child of Nature	35343. 新西兰/New Zealand	36344. 太平洋上的岛屿，在那里，人们既不辛勤工作，也不会胡扯，却同我们一样地生活着/ The Islands of the Pacific Where People Neither Toiled Nor Spun but Lived Just the Same	36745. 非洲，矛盾与对立的大陆/Africa, the Continent of Contradictions and Contrasts	37046. 美洲，幸运之洲/America, the Most Fortunate of All	40847. 新世界/A New World	437

章节摘录

　　1．我们生活的世界还生活着其他人　　And These Are the People Who　　Live in the World We Live in　　　　假设每个人都高6英尺（译者注：1英尺=0.3048米），宽1.5英尺，厚1英尺，就可以将全人类装在边长为半英里那么大的盒子里。把盒子推入亚利桑那州的大峡谷，人类将被埋葬在那里。远方的天文学家不会注意到这些，一个世纪后，只有那里周围的山和植物见证着人类被埋葬的所在地。　　我们只不过是一小撮脆弱而没有什么防范能力的哺乳动物。从人类诞生那天起，我们便被大群的生物团团包围，它们天生有比我们更强壮的生理条件。　　当我们笨拙地用两腿，而不像厚皮动物那样借助树干行走时，是这些陆地和水域的动物而不是我们主宰着世界。而现在，它们中的绝大数在自然历史博物馆中，或是被人类圈养，大部分则回到丛林，不再称霸世界。　　人类凭借自己理性的头脑成为世界的统治者，而人类中理性和独立思考能力更强的一小部分人成为人类的统治者。　　地球被具有不同智力和思考能力的人类划分，人类借助自己发达的大脑为自己夺取财富，但是底线是不能超越自然的法则，她要求我们研究并顺从她的命令。过犹不及。　　人类对于“创造大法则”，即同类之间应该和平友爱的公然违背会使人类陷入灭绝的困地。其他的物种正在高度警惕，毕竟被它们统治总是比装在盒子里的人类充斥着战舰和武器的世界有更多优点。　　本书希望能给读者以启示，指出问题所在。我们都有责任维护我们的世界的安宁。　　T sounds incredible, but nevertheless it is true. If everybody in this world of ours were six feet tall and a foot and a half wide and a foot thick (and that is making people a little bigger than they usually are), then the whole of the human race (and according to the latest available statistics there are now nearly 2,000,000,000 descendants of the original Homo Sapiens and his wife) could be packed into a box measuring half a mile in each direction. That, as I just said, sounds incredible, but if you don’t believe me, figure it out for yourself and you will find it to be correct.　　If we transported that box to the Grand Canyon of Arizona and balanced it neatly on the low stone wall that keeps people from breaking their necks when stunned by the incredible beauty of that silent witness of the forces of Eternity, and then called little Noodle, the dachshund, and told him (the tiny beast is very intelligent and loves to oblige) to give the unwieldy contraption a slight push with his soft brown nose, there would be a moment of crunching and ripping as the wooden planks loosened stones and shrubs and trees on their downward path, and then a low and even softer bumpity-bumpity-bump and a sudden splash when the outer edges struck the banks of the Colorado River.　　Then silence and oblivion!　　The astronomers on distant and nearby planets would have noticed nothing out of the ordinary.　　A century from now, a little mound, densely covered with vegetable matter, would perhaps indicate where humanity lay buried.　　And that would be all.　　I can well imagine that some of my readers will not quite like this story and will feel rather uncomfortable when they see their own proud race reduced to such proportions of sublime insignificance.　　There is however a different angle to the problem——an angle which makes the very smallness of our numbers and the helplessness of our puny little bodies a matter of profound and sincere pride.　　Here we are, a mere handful of weak and defenceless mammals. Ever since the dawn of the first day we have been surrounded on all sides by hordes and swarms of creatures infinitely better prepared for the struggle of existence than we are ourselves. Some of them were a hundred feet long and weighed as much as a small locomotive while others had teeth as sharp as the blade of a circular saw. Many varieties went about their daily affairs clad in the armor of a medieval knight. Others were invisible to the human eye but they multiplied at such a terrific rate that they would have owned the entire earth in less than a year’s time if it had not been for certain enemies who were able to destroy them almost as fast as they were born. Whereas man could only exist under the most favorable circumstances and was forced to look for a habitat among the few small pieces of dry land situated between the high mountains and the deep sea, these fellow-passengers of ours considered no summit too high and found no sea too deep for their ambitions. They were apparently made of the stuff that could survive regardless of its natural surroundings.　　When we learn on eminent authority that certain varieties of insects are able to disport themselves merrily in petroleum (a substance we would hardly fancy as the main part of our daily diet) and that others manage to live through such changes in temperature as would kill all of us within a very few minutes; when we discover to our gruesome dismay that those little brown beetles, who seem so fond of literature that they are forever racing around in our bookcases, continue the even tenor of their restless days minus two or three or four legs, while we ourselves are disabled by a mere pin-prick on one of our toes, then we sometimes begin to realize against what sort of competitors we have been forced to hold our own, ever since we made our first appearance upon this whirling bit of rock, lost somewhere in the darkest outskirts of an indifferent universe.　　What a side splitting joke we must have been to our pachydermous contemporaries who stood by and watched this pinkish sport of nature indulge in its first clumsy efforts to walk on its hind legs without the help of a convenient tree-trunk or cane!　　But what has become of those proud and exclusive owners of almost 200,000,000 square miles of land and water (not to mention the unfathomable oceans of air) who ruled so sublime by that right of eminent domain which was based upon brute force and sly cunning?　　The greater part of them has disappeared from view except where as “Exhibit A” or “B” we have kindly given them a little parking space in one of our museums devoted to natural history. Others, in order to remain among those present, were forced to go into domestic service and today in exchange for a mere livelihood they favor us with their hides and their eggs and their milk and the beef that grows upon their flanks, or drag such loads as we consider a little too heavy for our own lazy efforts. Many more have betaken themselves to out-of-the-way places where we permit them to browse and graze and perpetuate their species because, thus far, we have not thought it worth our while to remove them from the scene and claim their territory for ourselves.　　In short, during only a couple of thousands of centuries (a mere second from the point of view of eternity), the human race has made itself the undisputed ruler of every bit of land and at present it bids fair to add both air and sea as part of its domains. And all that, if you please, has been accomplished by a few hundred million creatures who enjoyed not one single advantage over their enemies except the divine gift of Reason.　　Even there I am exaggerating. The gift of Reason in its more sublime form and the ability to think for one’s self is restricted to a mere handful of men and women. They therefore become the masters who lead. The others, no matter how much they may resent the fact, can only follow. The result is a strange and halting procession, for no matter how hard people may try, there are ten thousand stragglers for every true pioneer.　　Whither the route of march will eventually lead us, that we do not know. But in the light of what has been achieved during the last four thousand years, there is no limit to the total sum of our potential achievements——unless we are tempted away from the path of normal development by our strange inherent cruelty which makes us treat other members of our own species as we would never have dared to treat a cow or a dog or even a tree.　　The earth and the fullness thereof has been placed at the disposal of Man. Where it has not been placed at his disposal, he has taken possession by right of his superior brain and by the strength of his foresight and his shot-guns.　　This home of ours is a good home. It grows food enough for all of us. It has abundant quarries and clay beds and forests from which all of us can be provided with more than ample shelter. The patient sheep of our pastures and the waving flax fields with their myriads of blue flowers, not to forget the industrious little silk-worm of China’s mulberry trees——they all contribute to shelter our bodies against the cold of winter and protect them against the scorching heat of summer. This home of ours is a good home. It produces all these benefits in so abundant measure that every man, woman and child could have his or her share with a little extra supply thrown in for the inevitable days of rest.　　But Nature has her own code of laws. They are just, these laws, but they are inexorable and there is no court of appeal.　　Nature will give unto us and she will give without stint, but in return she demands that we study her precepts and abide by her dictates.　　A hundred cows in a meadow meant for only fifty spells disaster——a bit of wisdom with which every farmer is thoroughly familiar. A million people gathered in one spot where there should be only a hundred thousand causes congestion, poverty and unnecessary suffering, a fact which apparently has been overlooked by those who are supposed to guide our destinies.　　That, however, is not the most serious of our manifold errors. There is another way in which we offend our generous foster-mother. Man in the only living organism that is hostile to its own kind. Dog does not eat dog——tiger does not eat tiger——yea, even the loathsome hyena lives at peace with the members of his own species. But Man hates Man, Man kills Man, and in the world of today the prime concern of every nation is to prepare itself for the coming slaughter of some more of its neighbors.

编辑推荐

　　房龙始终站在全人类的高度在写作，他摒弃了深奥理论，却拥有自己独立的思想和体系。他的论述主要是围绕人类生存与发展等本质的问题，贯穿其中的精神是科学、宽容和进步，他的目标是向人类的无知与偏执挑战，他采取的方式是普及知识和真理，使它们成为人所皆知的常识。

用户评论 (总计12条)

•   我表弟刚大学毕业，跟我谈话的时候说到了各个国家各个民族的起源和人种来源。我觉得他很厉害，因为对于英语专业的我来说，我都不晓得这些。我问他原因，他让我去看<房龙地理>。于是我四处搜寻，终于找到了这本中英对照读本。我只是才读了个开头，觉得房龙的语言很活泼，而且对地理的描述角度很独特。
•   买的是词汇书怎么成房龙地理了，书质量不错，不过给个好评吧
•   书很快收到,真的不错.谢谢
•   非常喜歡房龍幽默中不乏諷刺和關懷的筆法。但房龍對很多國家的評價有失偏頗。
•   学英语有个过程要给自己找点乐趣，这本书就不错
•   发货及时，产品没有问题。觉得应该再便宜点，另外导读不如双语两本书合适
•   虽然不是中英文对照版的，但是这种阅读方式能够打消对译文的依赖性，对提高阅读水平还是有帮助的
•   用来提高英文阅读水平好了
•   刚刚收到，书表面都有点破，希望内容不错吧
•   与想象的相差很远.我没看多少.
•   还好了，这书只是简单的大体介绍了几个国家，有的才500字左右...反正我觉得这书不怎么样
•   地理应该结合图片解说去展现给读者，而这本书全都是文字，而且排版也很马虎，从书籍的第一页开始就不满意，只能把它当作浪费了纸张的废物