Alan Taylor on Revolutionary Ironies and the Continental Civil War (Ep. 217)
Thank you to an anonymous listener for sponsoring this transcript.
感谢一位匿名听众赞助这份文字记录。
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Conversations with Tyler.
大家好，欢迎回到《与泰勒对话》。
Today I’m chatting with Alan Taylor, who’s professor of history at the University of Virginia.
今天我正在与弗吉尼亚大学历史学教授艾伦·泰勒聊天。
He could plausibly be considered America’s greatest living historian.
他有理由被认为是美国在世的最伟大的历史学家。
He’s written numerous books on colonial America, Native Americans, the revolutionary period, the early, now mid, and partly latter part of the 19th century.
他写了许多关于美国殖民地、美洲原住民、革命时期、19 世纪早期、现在中期和部分后期的书籍。
He is one of only very few people to have won two Pulitzer Prizes.
他是极少数两次获得普利策奖的人之一。
Let me stress the new book, publication date May 21, American Civil Wars: A Continental History, 1850–1873.
让我强调一下这本新书，出版日期为 5 月 21 日，《美国内战：大陆史，1850-1873 年》。
I enjoyed reading this very much.
我非常喜欢读这篇文章。
Learned a great deal from it.
从中学到了很多东西。
Alan, welcome.
艾伦，欢迎。
Well, thank you, Tyler.
好吧，谢谢你，泰勒。
I really appreciate having the chance to talk with you.
我真的很高兴有机会与您交谈。
Let’s start with the revolutionary period.
我们先从革命时期说起。
We will work up to the topics in your book, but initially, why did only the 13 colonies declare independence?
我们将讨论您书中的主题，但最初为什么只有 13 个殖民地宣布独立？
There’s this thing we later call Canada to the north.
北部有一个地方我们后来称之为加拿大。
Yes.
是的。
Why aren’t they part of this?
为什么他们不参与其中？
It’s also all these British colonies in the West Indies like Jamaica and Antigua and Barbados.
也包括牙买加、安提瓜和巴巴多斯等西印度群岛的所有英国殖民地。
If you look at the population figures, the places that rebel are the places that have the largest populations, and they’re connected with each other.
如果你看人口数字，叛乱的地方都是人口最多的地方，而且它们之间是有联系的。
There is a greater confidence that you can resist militarily.
有更大的信心可以进行军事抵抗。
Whereas if you’re one of these islands or you’re one of these small colonies to the north, you’re very tenuous and you’re very dependent on the British Royal Navy.
然而，如果你是这些岛屿之一，或者是北部的这些小殖民地之一，那么你就非常脆弱，并且非常依赖英国皇家海军。
That means that there’s a higher threshold in order to build up the confidence to rebel.
这意味着，要树立起反抗的信心，门槛就更高了。
What’s the influence of New France on this process?
新法兰西对这一进程有何影响？
In Canada, at that time, you had a French-speaking majority and a Catholic majority.
当时在加拿大，讲法语的人占多数，天主教徒占多数。
Recently, meaning 1774, the British had mollified the French Canadians by basically endorsing their system of law and their religion and protecting it by law.
最近，也就是 1774 年，英国人基本上认可了法裔加拿大人的法律体系和宗教，并通过法律保护它们，从而安抚了他们。
That’s one of the things that alienated the 13 colonies that were very much against Catholicism at that time.
这是疏远当时非常反对天主教的 13 个殖民地的原因之一。
The French Canadians were: The devil we know well, which is the British Empire, is better than the devil that we fear even more, which is the Protestant colonists to their south.
法裔加拿大人是：我们熟悉的魔鬼，即大英帝国，比我们更害怕的魔鬼，即他们南方的新教殖民者要好。
Now, here’s a quotation from your writings, page 37: “One of the great ironies of the American Revolution was that it led to virtually free land for settlers in British Canada while rendering land more expensive in the United States.” Could you explain that, please?
现在，这里引用您的著作，第 37 页：“美国革命最大的讽刺之一是，它为英属加拿大的定居者带来了几乎免费的土地，同时使美国的土地变得更加昂贵。”请你解释一下好吗？
Sure.
当然。
The war was very expensive.
战争的代价非常高昂。
All the states and the United States also incurred immense debts.
所有州和美国也都背负了巨额债务。
How are you going to pay for that?
你打算如何支付费用？
This is the time when there’s no income tax, and the chief ways in which governments could raise money were on import duties and then on selling land.
当时没有所得税，政府筹集资金的主要方式是征收进口税，然后是出售土地。
There was a lot of land, provided you could take it away from native peoples.
那里有很多土地，只要你能从土著人民手中夺走它。
All of the states and the United States were in the business of trying to sell land, but also they’re reliant within the states on these land taxes.
所有州和美国都在试图出售土地，但他们也依赖于这些土地税。
All of these go up, then, to try to finance the war debt.
那么，所有这些都上升，试图为战争债务融资。
Whereas in British Canada, the British government is subsidizing the local government.
而在英属加拿大，英国政府正在补贴当地政府。
They’re paying the full freight of it, which means that local taxes were much lower there.
他们支付全部运费，这意味着那里的地方税要低得多。
It also meant that they could afford to basically give away land to attract settlers.
这也意味着他们有能力放弃土地来吸引定居者。
They had this notion that if we offer free land to Americans, they will want to leave that new American republic, move back into the British Empire, strengthen Canada, and provide a militia to defend it.
他们有这样的想法，如果我们向美国人提供免费土地，他们就会想要离开这个新的美利坚共和国，回到大英帝国，加强加拿大，并提供民兵来保卫它。
If we think of people who left the original American colonies, how many of them do you think were leaving for political reasons, and how many were leaving because the land up north was cheaper?
如果我们想想那些离开原来的美国殖民地的人，你认为他们中有多少人是因为政治原因而离开的，有多少人是因为北方的土地更便宜而离开的？
I would say about a third of them are leaving for political reasons, and most of those leave very early in the 1780s.
我想说，他们中大约有三分之一是出于政治原因离开的，其中大多数人在 1780 年代很早就离开了。
Then there is a larger number, two-thirds of the overall total, who are going during the 1790s and the early 19th century.
然后还有更多的人，占总数的三分之二，是在 1790 年代和 19 世纪初去的。
For them, they’re not particularly political.
对他们来说，他们并不是特别政治化。
Their motivation is that they can get this free land in this lower tax burden by moving into British Canada.
他们的动机是，通过搬入英属加拿大，他们可以以较低的税负获得这块免费土地。
We shouldn’t exaggerate the numbers, however.
然而，我们不应该夸大这个数字。
We’re talking about relatively small numbers, something in the vicinity of about 50,000 people at most, and that’s a small portion of the millions that lived in the United States.
我们谈论的是相对较小的数字，最多约为 50,000 人，而这只是居住在美国的数百万人的一小部分。
If we think of the American Revolution as at some point being a surprise, is there any evidence on how asset prices reacted to that surprise, which is the question an economist would ask?
如果我们认为美国革命在某个时候是一个意外，那么是否有任何证据表明资产价格对这一意外有何反应，这是经济学家会问的问题？
It’s a great question.
这是一个很好的问题。
Assets are greatly depreciated during the war because these colonies and the new United States highly dependent on transatlantic trade.
由于这些殖民地和新美国高度依赖跨大西洋贸易，资产在战争期间大幅贬值。
If you’ve got the Royal Navy, which for almost all of the war is dominating the Atlantic, it’s very difficult to send out American produce to European and West Indian markets, and it’s very difficult to import goods.
如果英国皇家海军几乎在整个战争期间都主宰着大西洋，那么将美国产品运送到欧洲和西印度市场就非常困难，进口货物也非常困难。
Economists who’ve looked at the impact of the American Revolution on the economy in the short term, meaning essentially 1775 until 1790, estimate that the economy shrank by a third, which would make it the second-greatest depression in all of American history.
研究过美国革命对经济的短期影响（主要是 1775 年至 1790 年）的经济学家估计，美国经济萎缩了三分之一，这将使其成为美国历史上第二大萧条。
Assets were greatly depreciated until there’s a new federal government and there’s peace, so that during the 1790s, there comes a boom which more than restores the lost property values of the 1780s.
资产大幅贬值，直到出现新的联邦政府并实现和平，因此在 1790 年代出现了繁荣，不仅恢复了 1780 年代失去的财产价值。
In general, why did the British find it easier to mobilize Native Americans as allies?
总的来说，为什么英国人发现动员美洲原住民作为盟友更容易？
Is it just because they were less expansionist?
仅仅是因为他们的扩张主义程度较低吗？
It basically, again, comes down to population numbers.
这基本上又归结为人口数量。
You have approximately two-and-a-half million people living in the 13 colonies.
大约有 25 万人生活在 13 个殖民地。
Their population is doubling every 22 years.
他们的人口每 22 年就会翻一番。
This is the fastest population growth of any place on earth at that time.
这是当时地球上任何地方人口增长最快的。
They are an agricultural people, overwhelmingly; 95% of Americans made their living by agriculture at that time.
他们绝大多数是农业民族；当时95%的美国人以农业为生。
As the population doubles, they want the next generation to have the same standard of living, which means they need twice as much land, and so they’re expanding.
随着人口翻倍，他们希望下一代拥有相同的生活水平，这意味着他们需要两倍的土地，因此他们正在扩张。
Meanwhile, the British, their population at that time during the war is based in Canada, and it’s much smaller.
与此同时，英国人在战争期间的人口主要集中在加拿大，而且数量要少得多。
The British are just running a few small forts in the West, and they need native help to defend those forts against American expansion.
英国人在西部只管理着几个小堡垒，他们需要当地人的帮助来保卫这些堡垒，抵御美国的扩张。
Native peoples are calculating the enemy of my enemy as my friend, and they see the British as providing them with firearms to resist the American expansion.
土著人民将敌人的敌人视为朋友，他们认为英国人为他们提供枪支以抵抗美国的扩张。
For the great majority of native peoples, the British Empire is the better bet in order to maintain their hold on their homelands.
对于绝大多数原住民来说，为了维持对家园的控制，大英帝国是更好的选择。
On Canada and why America never conquered it
关于加拿大以及为什么美国从未征服它
Fast-forwarding to the War of 1812, which you’ve written an excellent book about, why couldn’t the then more than 7 million Americans overwhelm the, what, 300,000 to 500,000 — I’ve seen different estimates — British subjects in what we now call Canada?
快进到 1812 年战争，你写了一本很棒的书，为什么当时超过 700 万的美国人不能压倒 30 万到 50 万 —— 我看到了不同的估计 —— 英国臣民在我们现在所说的加拿大？
Certainly, American leaders thought it would be easy.
当然，美国领导人认为这很容易。
Thomas Jefferson said it would be “a mere matter of marching,” and it turns out wars are always more difficult than their projectors imagine.
托马斯·杰斐逊说，这“只是行军的问题”，但事实证明，战争总是比他们的预测者想象的更加困难。
The United States had virtually no professional military at that time.
当时的美国几乎没有专业军队。
They had an army that was essentially 9,000 men, spread very thin off over a very large country.
他们的军队基本上有 9,000 人，分散在一个非常大的国家。
They’re going to have to build up their army very, very fast, which meant that they were sending people into combat with virtually no training.
他们必须非常非常快地建立自己的军队，这意味着他们在几乎没有经过任何训练的情况下就派人参加战斗。
They’re going into a difficult landscape in order to try to supply them.
为了供应给他们，他们正在进入一个困难的境地。
The logistical lines were very long in order to support troops that are going into Canada.
为了支持进入加拿大的部队，后勤线很长。
Almost everything that could go wrong did go wrong.
几乎所有可能出错的事情都确实出错了。
Then these American forces start to suffer defeats, which then leads a lot of the American public to say, “What are we doing here?” The Madison administration, which had declared war, was counting on winning some early victories in order to boost public support for the war.
然后这些美国军队开始遭受失败，这导致很多美国公众说：“我们在这里做什么？”已宣战的麦迪逊政府指望赢得一些早期胜利，以提高公众对战争的支持。
When they don’t get those early victories — instead they get some catastrophic defeats — then suddenly everything gets much more difficult.
当他们没有取得早期的胜利——“相反，他们遭受了一些灾难性的失败”——那么突然间一切都会变得更加困难。
It’s also, the British had some good troops there.
而且，英国人在那里也有一些优秀的军队。
They weren’t numerous, but they were better-trained troops than the Americans had.
他们人数不多，但比美国人训练有素。
And they also had the support of native peoples, which turns out to be an enormous asset when you’re fighting in a landscape which is largely forested.
他们还得到了土著人民的支持，当你在森林覆盖的地区作战时，这会是一笔巨大的财富。
That’s because of supply lines and food?
那是因为补给线和食物吗？
The British have better supply lines.
英国人有更好的补给线。
That’s a world in which things move more easily by water.
在这个世界里，物体通过水更容易移动。
The British supply line is basically the Great Lakes connecting to the St. Lawrence River.
英国的补给线基本上是连接圣劳伦斯河的五大湖。
It’s a lot easier for them to move supplies and their manpower than it is for the Americans, who are trying to go over from one watershed into another one.
对他们来说，运送物资和人力比美国人容易得多，美国人正试图从一个分水岭进入另一个分水岭。
They’re trying to go from the Atlantic watershed into the Great Lakes watershed, and the British are much better established in the Great Lakes watershed.
他们正试图从大西洋分水岭进入五大湖分水岭，而英国人在五大湖分水岭的地位要好得多。
Looking after the war, why is there never a third war with Britain as so many people had expected?
回顾这场战争，为什么从未像许多人预期的那样与英国发生第三次战争？
What did those prognostications get wrong?
这些预测出了什么问题？
What they get wrong is that the United States is the most important export market for British goods.
他们的错误在于，美国是英国商品最重要的出口市场。
The United States relies on Britain for most of its manufactured goods.
美国的大部分制成品依赖英国。
Now, I’m talking about the 1820s, the 1830s.
现在，我谈论的是 1820 年代、1830 年代。
Also, America is a capital-deficient country at that time.
而且，美国当时还是一个资本匮乏的国家。
It is a land-rich country, but it is relatively labor poor, and it is capital poor.
它是一个土地丰富的国家，但劳动力相对匮乏，资本也匮乏。
There is a push to develop a transportation infrastructure in the United States, in the form of canals and then railroads.
美国正在大力发展交通基础设施，先是运河，然后是铁路。
The United States does not have enough capital to develop these things.
美国没有足够的资金来开发这些东西。
It’s British investment that makes possible the development of American infrastructure.
正是英国的投资使美国基础设施的发展成为可能。
A lot of American states and American corporations that are emerging at that time are highly dependent on British capital, and they really don’t want war to erupt.
当时美国很多州和新兴的美国企业都高度依赖英国资本，他们确实不希望战争爆发。
American cotton exporters are very dependent on the British market.
美国棉花出口商非常依赖英国市场。
American wheat exporters are very dependent on the British market.
美国小麦出口商非常依赖英国市场。
There are such powerful economic interests that lead people to draw back from the brink, and there are a lot of brinks during this period in which there are tensions between Britain and the United States, but the interesting thing is they don’t lead to war.
有如此强大的经济利益，导致人们从悬崖边退缩，而这期间也有很多边缘，英美关系紧张，但有趣的是，它们并没有导致战争。
Was there ever a chance of a Union invasion of Canada right after the US Civil War?
美国内战结束后，联邦是否有机会入侵加拿大？
There’s a chance, because that is one of the periods in which there’s a lot of tension that’s built up.
有机会，因为那是非常紧张的时期之一。
The Northern leaders and the Northern public were very angry at Britain because they had allowed the Confederacy to obtain some very powerful and effective warships.
北方领导人和北方公众对英国非常愤怒，因为他们允许南方邦联获得一些非常强大和有效的战舰。
The British had allowed a recognition of the Confederacy, a partial recognition of the Confederacy, in the form of seeing them as a belligerent.
英国允许承认南部邦联，部分承认南部邦联，将其视为交战国。
This really alienated a lot of Americans toward Britain, who felt that Britain was insufficiently supportive of the effort to suppress this rebellion.
这确实让很多美国人疏远了英国，他们认为英国对镇压这场叛乱的支持力度不够。
There was a lot of talk.
大家议论纷纷。
And there’s a lot of triumphalism, because the Union forces in April of 1865 have been so triumphant, and the United States has one of the largest and best militaries in the world, which was unprecedented in American history.
还有很多必胜的情绪，因为 1865 年 4 月的联邦军队取得了如此大的胜利，而美国拥有世界上最大、最好的军队之一，这在美国历史上是前所未有的。
There was a lot of talk about, let’s even scores by taking Canada.
有很多讨论，甚至让我们通过拿下加拿大来得分。
Then on the other side of the ledger is that most of the public, while they didn’t like Britain and liked the idea of adding Canada, they wanted their boys to come home.
另一方面，大多数公众虽然不喜欢英国并且喜欢加入加拿大的想法，但他们希望自己的孩子回家。
It had been a long, hard, deadly war, and most of the people just wanted the army to be demobilized.
这是一场漫长、艰苦、致命的战争，大多数人只想让军队复员。
It’s remarkable how quickly the Union army was demobilized.
联邦军队复员的速度惊人。
Once that happens, any organized invasion of Canada vanishes.
一旦发生这种情况，任何对加拿大的有组织的入侵都会消失。
Under the counterfactual, would America have won that war?
在反事实的情况下，美国会赢得那场战争吗？
An invasion of Canada?
入侵加拿大？
Yes.
是的。
Yes, they would’ve won the war.
是的，他们会赢得战争。
Absolutely, at that point, because they had an organized military.
绝对是这样，因为他们拥有一支有组织的军队。
The British had essentially about 12,000 troops, and the Union had about a million.
英国基本上有大约 12,000 名士兵，而联邦则有大约 100 万人。
It would’ve been very one-sided.
这将是非常片面的。
Now, the British Royal Navy was probably still better than the American Navy, so there would’ve been a lot of collateral damage to seaports like Boston or New York City, because the Royal Navy could have come in and done some real damage there.
现在，英国皇家海军可能仍然比美国海军更好，因此会对波士顿或纽约等海港造成很多附带损害，因为皇家海军可能会介入并在那里造成一些真正的损害。
It would not have been a war in which there was not a lot of suffering on the part of the Americans, but it’s a war in which if the goal was to conquer Canada, that could have been readily done.
这不会是一场美国人没有遭受太多苦难的战争，但如果这场战争的目标是征服加拿大，那是很容易做到的。
Now, flesh up the whole picture for me now.
现在，请为我充实整个画面。
Is this why the British North America Act comes in 1867?
这就是 1867 年英国北美法案出台的原因吗？
Yes.
是的。
The Canadian leaders have a set of problems.
加拿大领导人面临一系列问题。
One of the problems is there was a Canadian union, but it’s just between what we now call Ontario and Quebec.
问题之一是加拿大有一个工会，但它只是在我们现在所说的安大略省和魁北克省之间。
Quebec was francophone, and what would become Ontario is anglophone.
魁北克是法语国家，而后来的安大略省则是英语国家。
There’s an uneasy relationship there.
那里有一种不稳定的关系。
Politicians of all sorts say this can’t go on.
各种政治家都表示这种情况不能再继续下去。
One of the ideas they had was, let’s bring in some more partners.
他们的想法之一是，让我们引入更多合作伙伴。
Let’s bring in the Maritime provinces, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland, and maybe we can also expand to the Pacific.
让我们把沿海省份包括新不伦瑞克省、新斯科舍省、爱德华王子岛、纽芬兰岛，也许我们还可以扩展到太平洋地区。
At that time, there was another British colony, British Columbia, and then the Hudson’s Bay Company in theory owned all the territory between British Columbia and what’s now Ontario.
当时还有一个英国殖民地不列颠哥伦比亚省，然后哈德逊湾公司理论上拥有不列颠哥伦比亚省和现在的安大略省之间的所有领土。
There were visionaries who said, “Let’s build a transcontinental country, and this might help us solve the anglophone-francophone problem.” You’re bringing in a lot more anglophones, so one of the things that you offer to the French Canadians is, “This will be a looser union.
有远见者说：“让我们建立一个横贯大陆的国家，这可能有助于我们解决英语-法语问题。”你们引进了更多的英语国家，所以你们向法裔加拿大人提供的一件事是，“这将是一个更宽松的联盟。
This will be one where you’ll have more autonomy for Quebec than you currently have.” That becomes acceptable to most French Canadians.
这将是魁北克比目前拥有更多自治权的地方。”这对于大多数法裔加拿大人来说是可以接受的。
Now, the other thing about it is that also Canadian leaders are looking to the south and saying, “The immediate danger may be over of an American invasion, but there’s going to be tension again with Britain and the United States, and we need to be in a better position to defend ourselves.” The final factor is that British leaders were getting tired of footing the bill for defending Canada, and they want the Canadians to pay for it.
现在，另一件事是，加拿大领导人也将目光投向南方，并表示：“美国入侵的直接危险可能已经过去，但与英国和美国的紧张关系将再次出现，我们需要处于更好的位置来保卫自己。”最后一个因素是，英国领导人厌倦了为保卫加拿大买单，他们希望加拿大人为此买单。
All of those factors lead into the creation of the Dominion of Canada in 1867.
所有这些因素导致 1867 年加拿大自治领的成立。
Short of an American invasion, is there a meaningful counterfactual where Nova Scotia and Newfoundland become part of the United States?
如果没有美国入侵，新斯科舍省和纽芬兰省成为美国的一部分是否存在有意义的反事实？
Yes.
是的。
What does that look like?
那看起来像什么？
What it looks like is, the people in the Maritime provinces weren’t so sure that they wanted to be linked with Canada.
看起来，沿海省份的人们不太确定他们想与加拿大联系起来。
They had a much more robust trading relationship with the United States because they’re maritime oriented.
他们与美国有着更加牢固的贸易关系，因为他们以海运为导向。
There was no railroad at that time linking the Maritimes to Canada.
当时没有铁路连接滨海省和加拿大。
There were a fair number of politicians in Nova Scotia for whom the first option would be, let’s just maintain the status quo.
新斯科舍省有相当多的政治家，他们的第一个选择是，让我们维持现状。
We’re an independent colony, we’re our own little world, and we have trading relations with the United States.
我们是一个独立的殖民地，我们有自己的小世界，我们与美国有贸易关系。
Second option is, let’s join Canada.
第二个选择是，我们加入加拿大。
That seems a little dodgy to a lot of people.
对很多人来说这似乎有点狡猾。
The third option, which some people put on the table, is, let’s leave the British Empire and join the United States because that’s our primary market.
有些人提出的第三个选择是，让我们离开大英帝国并加入美国，因为那是我们的主要市场。
Everything was on the table in the 1860s and early 1870s as to what North America would look like in terms of what we now call Canada.
在 1860 年代和 1870 年代初，关于北美（即我们现在所说的加拿大）会是什么样子的一切都已摆在桌面上。
This is a bit of a digression, but how is it that Newfoundland ended up as an independent crown colony for a big part of the 20th century, given that there was the act in 1867?
这有点题外话，但既然 1867 年就有了这项法案，纽芬兰怎么会在 20 世纪的大部分时间里成为独立的直辖殖民地呢？
They then separate again.
然后他们再次分开。
What’s the story there?
那里有什么故事？
They’re a separate British colony, and they have a very small population in the 1860s, 1870s.
他们是一个独立的英国殖民地，在 1860 年代、1870 年代人口很少。
The economy is essentially just one thing, fishing, and the market for their fish is the British Isles.
经济本质上只是一件事，渔业，而他们的鱼的市场是不列颠群岛。
They don’t really see any economic reason to be linked to Canada.
他们确实认为没有任何经济理由与加拿大联系在一起。
They see very powerful reasons to remain linked to the British Empire.
他们看到了与大英帝国保持联系的强有力理由。
They’re not an independent country, but they’re a distinctive colony, and they will remain a British colony separate from Canada until the late 1940s.
他们不是一个独立的国家，但他们是一个独特的殖民地，并且直到 20 世纪 40 年代末，他们仍将是独立于加拿大的英国殖民地。
If we look at Canada today, we see, as you know, extremely high levels of immigration, people from all over the world.
如果我们看看今天的加拿大，如您所知，我们会看到来自世界各地的移民数量极高。
Do you in any way see this as rooted in Canada’s earlier history?
您是否认为这植根于加拿大的早期历史？
Do you have a different perspective on that?
您对此有不同的看法吗？
For you, is it a continuity or reversal?
对你来说，这是延续还是逆转？
Canada has long been a country that has wanted to have more immigrants.
加拿大长期以来一直是一个希望拥有更多移民的国家。
They have aggressively recruited immigrants ever since the later 19th century.
自 19 世纪后期以来，他们一直在积极招募移民。
One of the powerful considerations is, they look at the size of their country in terms of just geographic size, and it’s just a notch larger than the United States, but most of that country is arctic and subarctic.
其中一个重要的考虑因素是，他们仅从地理大小来看待自己国家的大小，它只比美国大一点，但该国的大部分地区位于北极和亚北极。
Even despite that fact, the population density in Canada within the temperate zone, which is approximately within 200 miles of the American border — that long stretch from the Pacific to Nova Scotia is still underpopulated relative to the United States.
尽管如此，加拿大温带地区的人口密度（距离美国边境大约 200 英里以内）——从太平洋到新斯科舍省的这段漫长距离，相对于美国来说仍然人口稀少。
Now, part of that corridor is well populated; that’s particularly in Ontario and Quebec.
现在，这条走廊的一部分已经挤满了人。尤其是在安大略省和魁北克省。
But points west and points in the Maritimes, it seems to Canadians that if they want to develop their economic potential and retain some relatively modest equilibrium with the United States, that they need more people.
但从西部和滨海省来看，加拿大人似乎认为，如果他们想发展自己的经济潜力并与美国保持某种相对适度的平衡，他们就需要更多的人口。
They’ve been setting quotas in recent years that are up to 500,000 immigrants annually, which for a country of Canada’s size — of about 32 million — is a significant number.
近年来，他们设定了每年高达 50 万移民的配额，对于加拿大这样一个幅员辽阔的国家（约 3200 万）来说，这是一个相当大的数字。
It adds up over time.
它随着时间的推移而增加。
Right now the proportion of people in Canada who are of foreign birth is rising.
目前，加拿大在外国出生的人口比例正在上升。
There’s also developing some pushback against that because it is contributing to inflation in the urban centers.
人们也对此提出了一些反对意见，因为它会加剧城市中心的通货膨胀。
You mean just housing prices and rents.
你指的只是房价和租金。
Housing prices and medical costs too, because they’re committed in Canada to public healthcare.
房价和医疗费用也是如此，因为加拿大致力于公共医疗保健。
It’s been a system that’s been very, very popular because it’s been effective.
这是一个非常非常受欢迎的系统，因为它很有效。
Right now there are strains on it because of the numbers of people, and public funding for it has not quite kept pace with either inflation or the numbers of people who want to use the system.
目前，由于人数众多，该系统面临压力，而且公共资金未能完全跟上通货膨胀或想要使用该系统的人数。
On America’s early obsession with the prospect of its own collapse
关于美国早期对自身崩溃前景的痴迷
A very general question.
一个非常普遍的问题。
You’ve written about this in a number of your books, but many early commentators, especially in Britain, in Canada, even in America, some of the Founding Fathers, they were very afraid the American republic was going to collapse.
你在很多书中都写到了这一点，但是许多早期的评论家，特别是在英国、加拿大，甚至在美国，一些开国元勋们，他们非常担心美利坚共和国会崩溃。
It was too large, too chaotic, some thought too democratic.
它太大、太混乱，有些人认为太民主。
What exactly did they get wrong, the people who thought that?
那些这么想的人到底错了什么？
What did they fail to see?
他们没有看到什么？
Because those arguments did not sound crazy at the time, right?
因为这些论点在当时听起来并不疯狂，对吧？
No, they didn’t sound crazy at the time.
不，他们当时听起来并不疯狂。
They weren’t crazy to worry about it, in that the United States did fall apart in 1860 to 1861.
他们担心这个问题并不疯狂，因为美国确实在 1860 年至 1861 年间分崩离析。
And it took an enormous effort, very expensive effort in terms of lives and money to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.
我们付出了巨大的努力，在生命和金钱方面都付出了非常昂贵的努力，才把矮胖子重新组装起来。
They had spent a long time ever since 1776 worrying about what actually did happen in 1860 to 1861.
自 1776 年以来，他们花了很长时间担心 1860 年至 1861 年实际发生的事情。
You could say, “Yes, they fended it off for 90 years.”
你可以说：“是的，他们抵御了它 90 年。”
There’s a recurrent sense of crisis within the American republic through much of that period of time, because there’s just fear that some region within the country would be growing too powerful, or there’s a recurrent fear that the country is getting too large.
在那段时间的大部分时间里，美利坚共和国内部反复出现危机感，因为人们担心该国的某些地区会变得过于强大，或者反复担心该国变得太大。
You’re getting Americans that now live on the Pacific coast.
现在生活在太平洋沿岸的美国人。
It was an open question whether those American states would spin off and create their own country.
这些美国各州是否会分立并创建自己的国家，这是一个悬而未决的问题。
A lot of things still seem to be possible.
很多事情看起来还是有可能的。
It’s also important to remember that the form of government that they were gambling on, a republic, had not worked very well in the past in Europe.
同样重要的是要记住，他们所赌注的政府形式——共和国——过去在欧洲效果不佳。
It had never been tried on this geographic scale.
从未在如此地理范围内进行过尝试。
They don’t yet have the confidence that their institutions will be durable.
他们还没有信心他们的机构能够持久。
Surviving the Civil War is an enormous confidence booster that the United States will hold together, despite its great internal diversity and despite its geographic scale.
尽管美国内部存在巨大差异且地理范围广阔，但从内战中幸存下来对于美国将团结起来具有巨大的信心。
Before that success in the Civil War, that confidence was absent.
在内战取得成功之前，这种信心是不存在的。
Let’s say circa 1780, what were general opinions like concerning the Swiss Confederacy?
假设在 1780 年左右，人们对瑞士联邦的普遍看法是怎样的？
That was seen as okay, a failure, big success?
这被认为是好的、失败还是巨大的成功？
It doesn’t seem it was very wealthy then, right?
看起来当时也不是很有钱吧？
Switzerland is almost never mentioned in American writings of that period.
那个时期的美国著作中几乎从未提及过瑞士。
If they want to talk about republics, they’re much more likely to talk about the Netherlands.
如果他们想谈论共和国，他们更有可能谈论荷兰。
Switzerland is out of sight, out of mind for Americans.
对于美国人来说，瑞士是眼不见心不烦的。
Do you think it was by anyone viewed as a success, or just it didn’t matter?
你认为这是被任何人视为成功的，还是只是无关紧要？
Well, if they paid attention to it all, then they would think, “Okay, that’s pretty good.
好吧，如果他们注意到这一切，那么他们会想，“好吧，那很好。
They’ve got a confederacy.
他们有一个联盟。
It’s been fairly long lasting, but it’s a small country.” It was a confederacy that was very loose at that time.
它持续了相当长的时间，但它是一个小国家。”当时这是一个非常松散的联盟。
That’s what a fair number of Americans thought they wanted at the start of the 1780s.
这就是 1780 年代初相当多的美国人认为他们想要的。
By the end of the 1780s, most of the top leadership in the American states had come to the conclusion that they needed something stronger than the kind of confederacy that you’d see in Switzerland.
到 1780 年代末，美国各州的大多数最高领导层都得出结论，他们需要比瑞士那种联盟更强大的联盟。
That they needed something that could be more truly a national government, one where the government at the center could make decisions that would be binding on all 13 states.
他们需要一个更真正的国家政府，一个以中央政府可以做出对所有 13 个州都具有约束力的决策的政府。
Switzerland recedes as a potential model as the United States experiences so many difficulties with its loose confederation during the 1780s.
由于美国在 1780 年代的松散联邦中经历了许多困难，瑞士作为潜在典范的地位逐渐下降。
How democratic were the Jacksonians, anyway?
无论如何，杰克逊派有多民主？
Your mentor, Marvin Meyers, he wrote on this a great deal, as I’m sure you know.
我相信你知道，你的导师马文·迈耶斯（Marvin Meyers）就此写了很多文章。
Yes, he did.
是的，他做到了。
He wrote extremely well about it.
他对此写得非常好。
It depends on how we want to define a democracy.
这取决于我们想要如何定义民主。
Let’s take the definition that we would use today, in which we’re saying it’s the vast majority of adults get to participate in making the political decisions that will affect them.
让我们采用今天使用的定义，其中我们说绝大多数成年人都可以参与影响他们的政治决策。
By that standard, the Jacksonians aren’t particularly democratic because they’re not keen to expand the vote to African Americans, to say the least, and they were not keen to open up political rights to women.
按照这个标准，杰克逊派并不是特别民主，因为至少可以说，他们并不热衷于将投票权扩大到非裔美国人，而且他们也不热衷于向妇女开放政治权利。
The great majority of adults in the United States were not included in the political system as direct participants.
美国绝大多数成年人没有作为直接参与者被纳入政治体系。
Now, if we say, by the standards of the 19th century in the transatlantic world — women were just not considered to be political participants anywhere, and we’re just talking about the male electorate — then you would say the Jacksonians were democratizers in that in most of the states, they have broadened the electorate by eliminating the property requirement to vote.
现在，如果我们说，按照 19 世纪跨大西洋世界的标准——“女性在任何地方都不被视为政治参与者，而我们谈论的只是男性选民”——那么你就会说杰克逊主义者是民主主义者，因为在大多数州，他们通过取消投票的财产要求来扩大选民范围。
They have not eliminated the gender requirement that you’d be male, and they have not eliminated the racial requirement that you’d be white.
他们没有消除你是男性的性别要求，也没有消除你是白人的种族要求。
African Americans, even where free, could vote only in the New England states at that time and in New York, if they met a property requirement, which was pretty high.
非裔美国人，即使在自由的地方，也只能在当时的新英格兰各州和纽约投票，前提是他们满足相当高的财产要求。
It’s not what we would consider democratic, but it is more democratic than what had preceded the Jacksonians.
这不是我们所认为的民主，但它比杰克逊主义者之前的民主更民主。
Insofar as you view the Jacksonian period differently from your mentor, how does that difference shape your view of 1850 to 1873, which is what you cover in your new book?
就您对杰克逊时期的看法与您的导师不同而言，这种差异如何影响您对 1850 年至 1873 年（您在新书中所阐述的内容）的看法？
I agree with Meyers on most things.
我在大多数事情上都同意迈耶斯的观点。
Meyers was of a generation where the focus was less on race than it has become, in thinking about American history.
迈耶斯这一代人在思考美国历史时，不再像现在这样关注种族问题。
That’s not an important dimension of his one great book, Jacksonian Persuasion.
这并不是他的一本伟大著作《杰克逊主义说服》的重要内容。
The role of American expansion into the West at the expense of native peoples is just not on his agenda.
美国以牺牲原住民利益为代价向西方扩张的行为并不在他的议程上。
Now, that’s not to criticize him.
现在，这并不是批评他。
It’s to say he was focused on political culture, and that political culture he brilliantly illuminated.
也就是说，他专注于政治文化，并且他对政治文化进行了精彩的阐释。
If we expand out the story, literally, to think about American expansion, then it looks like a somewhat different story.
如果我们从字面上扩展这个故事来思考美国的扩张，那么它看起来像是一个有些不同的故事。
Not an entirely different story, because the political culture is very much as Marvin Meyers described.
这并不是一个完全不同的故事，因为政治文化与马文·迈耶斯所描述的非常相似。
If we also bring in just how obsessed American leaders were at that time with racial difference, and at their sense of being beleaguered by the British Empire — in that there’s this very defensive expansionism that American leaders commit the country to — I would say that that expansionism, the bill that has to be paid for it comes due in the 1850s.
如果我们还考虑到当时美国领导人对种族差异的痴迷程度，以及他们被大英帝国围困的感觉——因为美国领导人承诺让国家实行这种防御性的扩张主义——我想说，这种扩张主义必须在 1850 年代付出代价。
That the United States had a magnificent military success over a weak country, Mexico, during the late 1840s.
美国在 1840 年代末期对墨西哥这个弱国取得了巨大的军事胜利。
They have conquered 40% of Mexico, extremely valuable potential territory, including California, Arizona, New Mexico.
他们已经征服了墨西哥40%的土地，这些极具价值的潜在领土，包括加利福尼亚州、亚利桑那州、新墨西哥州。
Then the issue becomes, what kind of labor system will be allowed by law in this conquered territory?
那么问题就变成了，在这片被征服的领土上，法律会允许什么样的劳动制度呢？
Will it be the labor system that prevails in the Northern states of free labor, or will it be the more mixed labor system of the South, where enslaved people are a critical element of the economy?
是北方自由劳动力各州盛行的劳动制度，还是南方更为混合的劳动制度，在南方，被奴役的人民是经济的关键要素？
These economic questions are linked to visions of what’s the good society.
这些经济问题与美好社会的愿景息息相关。
Northerners had become quite committed to the notion that they had a superior system.
北方人已经非常坚信他们拥有更优越的制度。
Southerners had become quite committed to the notion that their system was superior at favoring white men and at favoring republican government.
南方人已经非常坚信他们的制度在有利于白人和有利于共和政府方面具有优越性。
The two systems have evolved in parallel.
这两个系统是并行发展的。
Now they’re going to come into conflict over what labor system will prevail in this newly conquered territory.
现在，他们将在这片新征服的领土上盛行哪种劳动制度方面发生冲突。
Is a civil war inevitable by that point?
到那时内战是不可避免的吗？
Historians don’t like to say that anything’s inevitable.
历史学家不喜欢说任何事情都是不可避免的。
I’ll come closer to it than the great majority of historians would do.
我会比绝大多数历史学家更接近它。
It’s very hard for me to imagine how the leaders of that time — given how committed they were to different systems, and how committed they were to the notion that only their system could support free government — that I don’t quite see how they could have reached a compromise.
我很难想象当时的领导人如何——“考虑到他们对不同制度的执着程度，以及他们对只有他们的制度才能支持自由政府的观念的执着程度”——我不太明白他们如何能够达成妥协。
There was an effort in early 1861 to reach a compromise that would’ve said slavery is protected forever and the federal government can never touch it, that the West would be divided between the two systems or the geographic line that would be extended across the continent, and that there would be certain restrictions on what the federal government could do in terms of protecting industries with high tariffs.
1861年初，有人努力达成一项妥协，即奴隶制受到永久保护，联邦政府永远无法触及它，西方将被划分为两个体系或延伸到整个大陆的地理界限，联邦政府在保护高关税产业方面的行动将受到某些限制。
Neither side was willing to accept that compromise.
双方都不愿意接受这种妥协。
There were people who wanted the compromise, particularly in the border states, places like Kentucky and Virginia that were keen for that kind of compromise.
有些人想要妥协，特别是在边境州，比如肯塔基州和弗吉尼亚州，他们热衷于这种妥协。
But most of the North had become committed to the notion that the United States was a nation where the majority should rule.
但大多数北方人已经坚信美国是一个多数人应该统治的国家。
The deeper South had become committed to the proposition that they could not be united in the same country with a Northern public that favored a true nation.
更深入的南方已经接受了这样的主张：他们不能与支持真正国家的北方公众团结在同一个国家。
I really don’t see the juncture between 1850 and 1861 where any other kind of arrangement could have averted a conflict.
我真的不认为 1850 年至 1861 年之间有任何其他安排可以避免冲突。
On Mexico from the 1850s on
1850 年代以来的墨西哥
How did proximity to Mexico destabilize slavery in Texas?
靠近墨西哥是如何破坏德克萨斯州奴隶制的稳定的？
Mexico had abolished slavery.
墨西哥已经废除了奴隶制。
Now, they do have a coercive labor system.
现在，他们确实有强制劳动制度。
It’s called debt peonage.
这就是所谓的债务劳役。
It involves many Mexicans, but it is not the same thing as buying and selling human beings in perpetuity, meaning into future generations.
它涉及许多墨西哥人，但这与永久买卖人类（意味着子孙后代）不是一回事。
Enslaved people in Texas are relatively close to Mexico.
德克萨斯州的奴隶距离墨西哥相对较近。
It’s not easy to get across the border, but you do have several thousand African Americans who are escaping from slavery in Texas and going into Mexico.
跨越边境并不容易，但确实有数千名非裔美国人正在逃离德克萨斯州的奴隶制并进入墨西哥。
This is perceived by Texans, and indeed by Southerners generally, as a major problem.
德克萨斯人以及南方人普遍认为这是一个主要问题。
They want the United States government to be putting pressure on Mexico to extradite the escaped former slaves.
他们希望美国政府向墨西哥施加压力，要求引渡逃亡的前奴隶。
Mexico refuses to do so.
墨西哥拒绝这样做。
It is a point of tension between the United States and Mexico during the 1850s.
这是 1850 年代美国和墨西哥之间的紧张局势。
When the French occupy and partially conquer Mexico in the 1860s, what exactly do they think they’re going to accomplish?
当法国人在 1860 年代占领并部分征服墨西哥时，他们认为自己到底要实现什么目标？
Is it about mining, or trade, or just desire for empire?
是关于采矿，还是贸易，还是只是对帝国的渴望？
It’s all of the above, and it’s not entirely well thought out.
以上就是这些，而且还没有经过深思熟虑。
The prime mover for this is the emperor of France at that time, Napoleon III.
其主要推动者是当时的法国皇帝拿破仑三世。
He’s a nephew of the more famous Napoleon I.
他是更著名的拿破仑一世的侄子。
Napoleon III has very grandiose ideas about rebuilding a French Empire, and he sees an opportunity in Mexico.
拿破仑三世对于重建法兰西帝国有着非常宏伟的想法，他在墨西哥看到了机会。
He thinks this would position France to become the dominant power throughout the Americas, especially to the South.
他认为这将使法国成为整个美洲尤其是南部地区的主导力量。
He has this notion of Latin peoples, meaning Spanish and French and Portuguese speakers, should all hang together, and that they’re Catholics, and that the United States in its republican system is a problem and needs to be contained.
他认为拉丁民族，即讲西班牙语、法语和葡萄牙语的民族，应该团结在一起，他们都是天主教徒，而共和制度下的美国是一个问题，需要加以遏制。
He thought that he would be capturing a lot of trade for France through this geopolitical system of building solidarity with the Latin peoples of Latin America.
他认为，通过这种与拉丁美洲拉丁人民建立团结的地缘政治体系，他将为法国赢得大量贸易。
However, he’s plunging his country into a guerilla war that will be extremely deadly and extremely expensive, and he will never be able to achieve the kind of stability in Mexico that would be essential to fulfill his grandiose vision.
然而，他正在让自己的国家陷入一场极其致命、代价极其高昂的游击战争，而且他永远无法在墨西哥实现实现其宏伟愿景所必需的稳定。
In your understanding, how does that temporary French occupation sway the rest of Mexican history?
根据您的理解，法国的临时占领如何影响墨西哥的其余历史？
There had been ongoing civil war between the two political movements in Mexico that were conveniently called the liberals and the conservatives.
墨西哥两个政治运动之间一直存在持续的内战，这两个运动被方便地称为自由派和保守派。
Conservatives were committed to very traditional institutions — in other words, supporting the Catholic Church, supporting the military, supporting landlords.
保守派致力于非常传统的机构——换句话说，支持天主教会、支持军队、支持地主。
The liberals were modernizers in that they wanted to have a republic where the voters would choose their rulers.
自由主义者是现代化主义者，因为他们希望建立一个由选民选择统治者的共和国。
They wanted an economy that was freed from traditional restraints imposed by the church and by the landlords.
他们想要一种摆脱教会和地主施加的传统限制的经济。
They wanted a 19th-century liberal system in which individuals were free to compete for economic benefit.
他们想要一个 19 世纪的自由主义制度，让个人可以自由竞争经济利益。
There are two very powerfully different visions for what Mexico should be.
对于墨西哥应该是什么样子，存在两种截然不同的愿景。
By the French intervening on behalf of the conservatives and then losing, they discredit the conservative movement for a long time.
法国人代表保守派介入并最终失败，使他们长期抹黑了保守派运动。
It means that the liberal movement, while they don’t fulfill all their promises by any means — for example, they don’t really succeed in taking down all the landlords.
这意味着自由主义运动虽然没有以任何方式履行他们的所有承诺——例如，他们并没有真正成功地推翻所有地主。
They do take down those landlords that had been most conspicuously supportive of the conservatives and the French imperialists.
他们确实打倒了那些最明显支持保守派和法帝国主义者的地主。
Mexico is going to continue to struggle with enormous inequality throughout the rest of the 19th century.
在 19 世纪余下的时间里，墨西哥将继续与巨大的不平等作斗争。
The liberals do establish principles of more free elections — not completely free, but more free elections — and of a free press, and of a legal system which is going to be more equitable than what had preceded it.
自由主义者确实确立了更自由的选举原则——“不是完全自由，而是更自由的选举”——以及新闻自由和比以前更加公平的法律制度的原则。
I would say that the triumph of the liberals in Mexico, under the leadership of Benito Juárez, is one of the most important events of the 19th century in North America.
我想说，墨西哥自由派在贝尼托·华雷斯 (Benito Juárez) 的领导下取得的胜利，是 19 世纪北美最重要的事件之一。
Until Porfirio Díaz later, why is there so little interest in building up national infrastructure in Mexico?
直到后来的波菲里奥·迪亚斯（Porfirio Díaz），为什么墨西哥对建设国家基础设施兴趣不大？
Oh, there’s very powerful interest in doing that, but the problem is, again, capital.
哦，这样做的兴趣非常浓厚，但问题又是资本。
It’s also rural security.
这也是农村安全。
Mexico has a major problem with banditry in the countryside because there’s so much poverty.
墨西哥的农村地区存在严重的盗匪问题，因为那里有太多的贫困。
Starting in the 1850s, Mexican leaders, whether conservative or liberal, are desperate to build railroads.
从 1850 年代开始，墨西哥领导人，无论是保守派还是自由派，都迫切希望修建铁路。
The striking thing is they’ve got almost no railroads.
引人注目的是他们几乎没有铁路。
Also, the geography of Mexico is not nearly as favorable for building long-distance railroads than is the United States.
此外，墨西哥的地理位置并不像美国那样有利于修建长途铁路。
Very mountainous; very arid; many parts of the country, the population is so thin on the ground that it’s not economically sustainable to run a railroad line; lack of capital; governments that were unstable.
多山；非常干旱；该国许多地区人口稀少，运营铁路线在经济上不可持续；缺乏资金；不稳定的政府。
It’s only with the triumph of Juárez that it’s clear that there is a government that can be a partner with American investors.
只有华雷斯的胜利才表明，有一个政府可以成为美国投资者的合作伙伴。
That’s when the railroad system starts to develop at a more rapid clip.
那时铁路系统开始以更快的速度发展。
Given what you know about the history of Mexico, does that make you more bullish or more bearish on the country today?
鉴于您对墨西哥历史的了解，这是否会让您对今天的国家更加看好还是更加看跌？
It’s had enormous potential for a long time.
长期以来它都具有巨大的潜力。
In some ways, it’s realizing the potential, but one hears the drug gangs maybe rule a quarter to a third of the territory, speaking of rural banditry.
在某些方面，它正在实现潜力，但人们听说贩毒团伙可能统治着四分之一到三分之一的领土，谈到农村土匪活动。
How do you view the current moment based on everything you know?
根据你所知道的一切，你如何看待当前时刻？
I can’t pretend to have the kind of expertise on Mexico today.
我不能假装拥有今天对墨西哥的专业知识。
There are other people that you could consult with, so I’m just giving you my superficial impressions.
还有其他人可以咨询，所以我只是给你一些粗浅的印象。
Those other people would know less about the history than you.
其他人对历史的了解可能比你少。
That’s true.
这是真的。
I want your marginal product.
我想要你的边际产量。
Again, I want to say I’ve not ever been to Mexico, so I’m very hesitant to say very much.
再说一遍，我想说我从来没有去过墨西哥，所以我很犹豫要不要说太多。
My impression from what I do read and so forth, and compare it with the past history, is that Mexico on balance hasn’t been in the early 21st century economically successful, that its political institutions have undergone a lot of stress during that period of time, but that they’re currently doing okay.
根据我所读到的内容以及与过去历史的比较，我的印象是，总体而言，墨西哥在 21 世纪初的经济上并不成功，其政治机构在那段时间承受了很大的压力，但目前表现还不错。
Our political system is undergoing a lot of stress right now.
我们的政治体系现在正承受很大的压力。
I would be wary of an analysis that says Mexico is some basket case.
我会对说墨西哥陷入困境的分析持谨慎态度。
It’s a mixed bag, as you said.
正如你所说，这是一个鱼龙混杂的情况。
There are parts of the country where the nation-state does not have full security.
该国某些地区的民族国家没有完全的安全。
Then there are parts of the country where more people are doing very well and the government is relatively secure.
还有一些地区，有更多的人过得很好，政府也相对安全。
I would be hesitant to go beyond that.
我会犹豫是否要超越这个范围。
On the deep and shallow roots of Caribbean development
论加勒比地区发展的深浅根源
Given what you know about earlier Caribbean history, how do you view the Haitian instability, which is almost all the time?
鉴于您对加勒比地区早期历史的了解，您如何看待海地几乎一直存在的不稳定局势？
That is clearly a very tragic and long-lasting situation.
这显然是一种非常悲惨和持久的情况。
One of the sources of Haiti’s problems — I’m not saying it’s the only source, but one of the big sources is that they had waged a revolution to achieve their independence.
海地问题的根源之一——我并不是说这是唯一的根源，但重要的根源之一是他们为了实现独立而发动了一场革命。
Then none of the countries would recognize them as independent because they were fearful of the precedent of enslaved people rising up in revolt and killing their masters.
那么，没有一个国家会承认他们的独立，因为他们害怕被奴役的人民起来反抗并杀死他们的主人。
Also, frankly, the French had seen a lot of property that had belonged to their nationals wiped out by this revolution.
此外，坦率地说，法国人看到许多属于其国民的财产在这场革命中被摧毁。
France refuses to recognize Haiti unless Haiti will pay an enormous financial sum.
除非海地支付巨额资金，否则法国拒绝承认海地。
I can’t off the top of my head tell you what that amount is, but it is an enormous amount.
我无法直接告诉你这个数字是多少，但它是一个巨大的数字。
And it then commits the leadership of Haiti to adopting a more coercive system that compels its people to become plantation laborers again to produce crops that can be exported to earn foreign capital so that this can be turned over to France.
然后，它要求海地领导人采取更具强制性的制度，迫使其人民再次成为种植园工人，生产可以出口以赚取外国资本的农作物，以便将其移交给法国。
It’s an enormous burden that Haiti never gets out from under.
这是海地永远无法摆脱的巨大负担。
The 20th-century situation is so complicated, and I have not looked at that fully.
20世纪的情况如此复杂，我还没有看透。
So I’m just saying what from the 19th century has contributed to the impoverishment of Haiti and the establishment of a political tradition of authoritarianism, and it’s those two problems that still remain so evident in Haiti today.
所以我只是说，从19世纪开始，是什么导致了海地的贫困和威权主义政治传统的建立，正是这两个问题在今天的海地仍然如此明显。
The Dominican Republic has done relatively well.
多米尼加共和国的表现相对较好。
Do you view that as an issue of deep roots or just a series of later, different, accidental forces from a historical point of view?
您是否认为这是一个根深蒂固的问题，还是从历史的角度来看只是一系列后来的、不同的、偶然的力量？
In the 19th century you would not have said that the Dominican Republic was doing well.
在 19 世纪，你不会说多米尼加共和国做得很好。
It reverts back to Spanish control during the American Civil War.
美国内战期间，它又回到了西班牙的控制之下。
What I would say is that the Dominican Republic never has this extractive financial commitment that turns out to be so burdensome on Haiti.
我想说的是，多米尼加共和国从来没有做出过这种榨取财政的承诺，结果却给海地带来了如此沉重的负担。
At that time, the country was called Santo Domingo, meaning the Dominican Republic.
当时，这个国家被称为圣多明各，意思是多米尼加共和国。
If you were in the 1870s, you would be hard pressed to say, which of these two countries is going to have the better economic future?
如果你身处 1870 年代，你很难说这两个国家中哪一个将拥有更好的经济未来？
If you look really close and you think this debt burden that Haiti is carrying is probably going to be the difference in the longer run, and it is one of the factors that has led Haiti to lag behind the Dominican Republic.
如果你仔细观察，你会认为海地所承受的债务负担从长远来看可能会产生差异，这也是导致海地落后于多米尼加共和国的因素之一。
Do you think there are deep roots to the now long-standing Cuban communist rule period, or is that, again, just something that happened later?
您认为古巴共产主义长期统治时期是否有深刻的根源，或者这只是后来发生的事情？
In the 19th century, Cuba is still part of the Spanish Empire and will remain part of that empire until 1898 when the United States conquers it.
在 19 世纪，古巴仍然是西班牙帝国的一部分，并将一直是该帝国的一部分，直到 1898 年美国征服它为止。
It’s a period of great instability because many Cuban leaders want to be independent.
这是一个非常不稳定的时期，因为许多古巴领导人希望独立。
They’re looking at the other countries of Latin America — Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, Brazil, on and on — as having achieved their independence.
他们将拉丁美洲的其他国家——墨西哥、委内瑞拉、哥伦比亚、巴西等等——视为已经实现了独立。
There is the perspective by many Cuban leaders that they would be a more prosperous country if they were not being ruled by the authority of Spain.
许多古巴领导人认为，如果不受西班牙当局的统治，他们将成为一个更加繁荣的国家。
Spain is able to maintain its control over Cuba until there’s an American invasion.
西班牙能够维持对古巴的控制，直到美国入侵。
Then the United States reneges on its initial commitments to recognize a full Cuban independence.
随后，美国违背了承认古巴完全独立的最初承诺。
It’s very grudging, the concessions that the United States makes to the Cuban people, so it builds up a resentment toward the United States.
美国对古巴人民做出的让步是非常勉强的，所以才引起了古巴人民对美国的怨恨。
They wanted the United States to be the liberator.
他们希望美国成为解放者。
Initially it looked like the United States was their liberator, and then there is a long period of the frustration of those aspirations.
最初看起来美国是他们的解放者，然后这些愿望经历了很长一段时间的受挫。
I would say those are aspects that do contribute to the rise of a future revolution that will end up being a communist revolution in Cuba.
我想说，这些方面确实有助于未来革命的兴起，最终将成为古巴的共产主义革命。
What do you think Tocqueville got most wrong about America?
您认为托克维尔对美国最错误的看法是什么？
I’m more impressed by what he got right about it.
我对他的正确做法印象更深刻。
I guess what you could say is that he did predict there would be a civil war, but he thought it would be a civil war that would be purely along racial lines.
我想你可能会说，他确实预测会有一场内战，但他认为这将是一场纯粹按照种族界限的内战。
Now, race, of course, is very, very important to the American Civil War, but I don’t think he would’ve predicted that it would be a North-South conflict.
当然，种族对于美国内战来说非常非常重要，但我认为他不会预测到这将是一场南北冲突。
He thought it would be a civil war within all of the states.
他认为这将是所有州之间的内战。
I’d say that’s the one area where he didn’t get it quite right.
我想说这是他做得不太正确的一个领域。
How good a novel is Uncle Tom’s Cabin?
《汤姆叔叔的小屋》有多好看？
We know it’s historically very, very important, but just to sit down and read it, what should someone today think about it?
我们知道它在历史上非常非常重要，但只要坐下来阅读它，今天的人应该怎么想呢？
If you’re looking for a good read today, I would not recommend Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
如果您今天正在寻找一本好书，我不会推荐《汤姆叔叔的小屋》。
If you want to understand sentimental culture of the 19th century, then you should read Uncle Tom’s Cabin because it’s very much pitched in that vein.
如果你想了解 19 世纪的情感文化，那么你应该阅读《汤姆叔叔的小屋》，因为它非常符合这种风格。
It’s a vein that most of us readers today just are not that interested in.
今天我们大多数读者对这一脉络并不感兴趣。
Going back to the beginnings of your career, in which regards was Maine ever the frontier state of the northeast?
回到您职业生涯的开始，缅因州在哪些方面曾经是东北部的边境州？
Oh, it was very much the frontier state throughout the colonial period and on into the early 19th century.
哦，从整个殖民时期一直到 19 世纪初，它在很大程度上都是边境国家。
If you’re in Massachusetts and you were looking for a place where you could go and get some farmland that would be relatively low in cost, because it hadn’t been developed as farmland — you just apply your labor to create a farm — then the easiest place for you to get to was Maine, on into the 1830s and ’40s.
如果你在马萨诸塞州，你正在寻找一个可以去获得一些成本相对较低的农田的地方，因为它没有被开发为农田 ——你只需用你的劳动力来创建一个农场 ——那么你最容易到达的地方就是缅因州，一直到 1830 年代和 40 年代。
It’s in the odd position of being along the Atlantic coast, and yet it’s still a frontier.
它位于大西洋沿岸，位置很奇怪，但它仍然是一个边境。
What’s the closest thing America has to a frontier today?
今天美国最接近边境的东西是什么？
It’s not space anymore, if it ever was.
它不再是空间了，如果它曾经是的话。
It’s not Maine.
这不是缅因州。
No, it’s not Maine.
不，这不是缅因州。
I certainly hope Americans will not regard going into space as something that millions of people are going to be able to do and be able to survive on, say, Mars.
我当然希望美国人不要将进入太空视为数百万人能够做到并能够在火星上生存的事情。
I think that’s a complete folly and waste of money.
我认为这完全是愚蠢和浪费金钱。
The reality is, we live on this planet which has a very thin atmosphere, and that and our geomagnetic field are — and the existence of a moon — are rare things.
现实是，我们生活在这个大气层非常稀薄的星球上，而我们的地磁场和卫星的存在都是罕见的。
Certainly they’re unique in our solar system.
当然，它们在我们的太阳系中是独一无二的。
What’s beyond that is utterly inhospitable, to say the least, to our bodies.
至少可以说，除此之外的东西对我们的身体来说是完全不适宜居住的。
There is no real frontier anymore, anywhere in the world.
世界上任何地方都不再有真正的边界。
Yes, there are places that are more thinly settled than others.
是的，有些地方比其他地方人口稀少。
You could say Alaska is still a frontier, but large numbers of people are not going to be able to expand into Alaska.
你可以说阿拉斯加仍然是一个边境，但大量的人将无法扩展到阿拉斯加。
It’s not going to be able to support a lot of people.
它无法支持很多人。
As a consequence, we’re stuck on this planet, and we have to figure out how to make the best of it and sustain it.
结果，我们被困在这个星球上，我们必须弄清楚如何充分利用它并维持它。
On the (modern) practice of history
论（现代）历史实践
I have just some general questions about doing history.
我只是有一些关于历史的一般性问题。
Just a simple physicalist question: What’s the most difficult thing?
只是一个简单的物理主义问题：最困难的事情是什么？
I don’t mean intellectually, but just on your body or on your eyes or on your behind, the hardest thing about doing the work of history.
我指的不是智力上的，而是在你的身体上、你的眼睛上或你的背部上，这是从事历史工作时最困难的事情。
Your eyes, because you’re reading a lot of old documents that are written in a cursive, and often by people who have a very different style of cursive than we do today.
你的眼睛，因为你正在阅读很多用草书写的旧文档，而且通常是由那些与我们今天的草书风格非常不同的人写的。
A lot of cases, you’re looking at stuff that’s on a computer screen or on a microfilm reel.
很多情况下，您正在查看计算机屏幕或缩微胶卷上的内容。
That’s the hardest thing.
这是最难的事情。
Now, it’s also just sitting still, something that I think is easier for people of our generation than it is for younger people.
现在，它也只是坐着不动，我认为这对我们这一代人来说比对年轻人来说更容易。
Being able to isolate yourself in an archive, there’s nothing that makes me — very few things, I should say, in this world that make me happier than doing that.
能够将自己隔离在档案中，没有什么能让我——我应该说，在这个世界上，很少有比这样做更让我快乐的事情了。
But it’s not for everybody to do that kind of work.
但并不是每个人都适合做这样的工作。
I know some young people who just have said, “I tried graduate education in this field, but just being alone, researching in an archive is just not for me.”
我认识一些年轻人，他们刚刚说过：“我尝试过在这个领域进行研究生教育，但只是孤身一人，在档案馆中进行研究并不适合我。”
If you meet a young person and they’re a potentially promising historian, of course they should be smart; they should want to work hard.
如果你遇到一个年轻人，并且他是一位有潜力的历史学家，那么他们当然应该很聪明；他们应该想要努力工作。
But beyond the obvious factors and good eyes, what else do you look for in the person?
但除了明显的因素和漂亮的眼睛之外，你还在这个人身上寻找什么？
How do you spot that magic something?
你如何发现那个神奇的东西？
It’s not easy.
这并不容易。
For example, I used to run the graduate program at the University of California, Davis, the graduate program in history.
例如，我曾经在加州大学戴维斯分校负责历史学研究生项目。
There was a young man who wanted into our program, and on paper he didn’t look quite as good as some of the other applicants, so we weren’t able to come up with financial support for him.
有一个年轻人想加入我们的项目，但表面上他看起来不如其他一些申请者，所以我们无法为他提供经济支持。
We admitted him.
我们录取了他。
I thought he wouldn’t come, but he came anyway.
我以为他不会来，但他还是来了。
Then he turned out to be the very best graduate student we had.
后来他成为我们最好的研究生。
What I would say is that it’s very hard by the just exam scores or a paper that they’ve written or letters of recommendation.
我想说的是，仅凭考试成绩或他们写的论文或推荐信很难。
You’re making your decisions on these bases, and they’re not always the best predictors.
你是根据这些基础做出决定的，它们并不总是最好的预测因素。
It’s hard to say, “What would be the best predictor?” In this case, this was a guy that was just really driven to work hard and to — if a professor told him to do something differently, he figured out how to do it differently.
很难说“最好的预测因素是什么？”在这种情况下，他是一个真正努力工作的人，并且“如果教授告诉他做一些不同的事情，他就会想出如何以不同的方式去做。”
That can be hard to find, I would say.
我想说，这可能很难找到。
Your PhD is from Brandeis.
你的博士学位来自布兰迪斯。
That’s a very good school, but it’s not a top-five school in the traditional sense, and yet you’ve become a top-tier historian.
那是一所很好的学校，但不是传统意义上的前五名学校，但你却成为了顶级的历史学家。
Is that harder to do today, coming out of a good but not very, very top school?
如今，从一所不错但不是非常非常顶尖的学校出来，这是否更难做到？
I would say it’s harder today because we’re talking about people who are historians in a college or university setting.
我想说今天更难了，因为我们谈论的是学院或大学环境中的历史学家。
The number of job openings for historians has shrunk dramatically.
历史学家的职位空缺数量急剧减少。
There are lots of complicated reasons for why that’s happened, but the general answer is that there’s a much smaller public investment in higher education, particularly in the liberal arts, and particularly in nonquantitative arts of the liberal arts.
造成这种情况的原因有很多复杂，但普遍的答案是，高等教育的公共投资要少得多，特别是文科，特别是文科的非定量艺术。
There’s fewer opportunities out there for somebody to work their way in.
人们通过自己的努力进入的机会越来越少。
When that happens, then the marginal advantage that is the prestige of the school you went to becomes more important in the competition for a shrinking number of jobs.
当这种情况发生时，你就读的学校的声望这一边际优势在就业机会不断减少的竞争中就变得更加重要。
If I were to go on the job market today as a young person with the particular abilities and inabilities that I had when I went on it in the past, I’m not sure I would get a job in academia.
如果我今天以一个年轻人的身份进入就业市场，并且拥有过去就业时所拥有的特殊能力和无能，我不确定我是否会在学术界找到一份工作。
What is it you tell graduate students in history, or what should we tell them?
您告诉历史学研究生什么，或者我们应该告诉他们什么？
Do you tell them, “Your chance of getting a good job is one divided by some number that’s a little scary”?
你是否告诉他们，“你找到一份好工作的机会是除以某个有点可怕的数字”？
How is this marketed to people?
这是如何向人们推销的？
I can’t say how all places market it.
我不能说所有地方都是如何营销它的。
I can just say what I would say, and what most of the people I do know say, is: If you’re going to get a PhD in history with the notion that this is going to assure you of a tenure-track job in a place where you want to live, that’s not going to happen, or it’s very unlikely that it will happen.
我只能说我想说的话，也是我认识的大多数人所说的话：如果你要获得历史学博士学位，并认为这将确保你在你想要居住的地方找到一份终身教职，那么这种情况就不会发生，或者说它不太可能发生。
Now, there are people who are getting PhDs in history who are finding other places that will employ their skills: working for foundations, working for local or the federal government, sometimes working for corporations which will want to have an in-house historian.
现在，有些正在获得历史学博士学位的人正在寻找其他可以发挥其技能的地方：为基金会工作，为当地或联邦政府工作，有时为希望拥有一名内部历史学家的公司工作。
There is some growth in fields beyond academia, what has come to be called public history, so it’s not entirely hopeless.
学术界以外的领域也有一些增长，即所谓的公共历史，所以这并不是完全没有希望。
What I say to you is, if your vision of your future is that you must be an academic and you want it to be in history, I would say that’s very, very unlikely it’s going to work out in current conditions.
我对你说的是，如果你对未来的愿景是你必须成为一名学者并且你希望它成为历史，那么我想说，在目前的情况下，这是非常非常不可能的。
How will large language models change how we do historical research?
大型语言模型将如何改变我们进行历史研究的方式？
I have to confess, I’m not that familiar with how these large language models would work, so I’m going to punt on that question.
我必须承认，我不太熟悉这些大型语言模型的工作原理，所以我要在这个问题上押注。
Say you could wear glasses — and I think this will be possible in less than five years — and the glasses record everything you read and put it into a database that you can search just using your voice.
假设你可以戴上眼镜 ——我认为这将在不到五年的时间内实现—— 眼镜会记录你阅读的所有内容并将其放入数据库中，你只需使用语音即可进行搜索。
So everything you’ve read in your entire life, you would have on file, searchable; you could organize it any way you want.
因此，您一生中读过的所有内容都将被存档并可搜索；你可以按照你想要的方式组织它。
I would think that would change things.
我认为这会改变事情。
I don’t know how, not being a historian.
我不知道怎么办，因为我不是历史学家。
Absolutely.
绝对地。
Given your description of it, it would change things radically.
根据你的描述，这将从根本上改变事情。
Now, I’m trying to resist being the old curmudgeon who says the way we did things in my day are the way things always should be.
现在，我正在努力抵制成为一个脾气暴躁的人，他们说我们在我那个时代做事的方式就应该是这样的。
But I would say is, it does seem that AI and the various other technological revolutionary measures that we’re right on in the midst of right now, in terms of managing data and analyzing data, is going to render the individual human mind of less value in the overall process and is going to — it seems to me, is going to diminish the role, therefore, of individuality and diversity in analyzing data and telling stories about the past, which is what we do as historians.
但我要说的是，人工智能和我们目前正在采取的各种其他技术革命性措施，在管理数据和分析数据方面，似乎将降低人类个体思维在整个过程中的价值，并且在我看来，将削弱个性和多样性在分析数据和讲述过去故事中的作用，而这正是我们作为历史学家所做的。
We tell stories that we think, and hopefully our readers agree, are meaningful for understanding the past in relationship to their current situation.
我们讲述我们认为并且希望我们的读者同意的故事，这些故事对于理解过去与当前状况的关系是有意义的。
All I can say is, it does seem like we’re in the midst of a very radical change.
我只能说，我们确实正处于一场彻底的变革之中。
I like the system of analyzing data that I grew up figuring out, and I’ll be sad to see it go.
我喜欢我从小就弄清楚的数据分析系统，看到它消失我会很难过。
How can an educated person best use YouTube to learn history without going too badly astray?
一个受过教育的人如何才能最好地利用 YouTube 来学习历史而不至于误入歧途呢？
If you’re relying exclusively on YouTube, good luck.
如果您完全依赖 YouTube，那么祝您好运。
To do history really well is to have a sense that you need to see very different perspectives on events that you want to understand, and you need to get as close to the actual original sources as you can.
要想真正做好历史，就要有一种感觉，你需要对你想要理解的事件看到非常不同的观点，并且你需要尽可能接近实际的原始资料。
The fact that so much information is now available online is a two-edged sword.
事实上，现在网上有如此多的信息，这是一把双刃剑。
It’s mostly good, but there’s also lots of misinformation that’s woven into it, and it can be very hard to tell the information from the misinformation.
它基本上是好的，但也有很多错误信息交织在其中，而且很难区分信息和错误信息。
Then there’s also a notion that everything is already there online, when in point of fact, lots of information about the past still only exists in archives.
还有一种观念认为一切都已经存在于网上，而事实上，许多关于过去的信息仍然只存在于档案中。
It’s also the fact that archives themselves are only a partial survival mechanism for all the things that did happen in the past, most of which were not well documented if we get beyond top political leadership.
事实上，档案本身只是过去发生的所有事情的部分保存机制，如果我们超越最高政治领导层，其中大部分都没有得到很好的记录。
It’s endlessly difficult, I think, to try to get into a history that is truly true, given those difficulties.
我认为，考虑到这些困难，试图了解真正真实的历史是极其困难的。
You do some serious talks on YouTube, which I think represent your views quite accurately.
您在 YouTube 上做了一些严肃的演讲，我认为这非常准确地代表了您的观点。
It’s you, right?
是你，对吧？
Yes.
是的。
Is a typical person better off reading an hour of your book or listening to an hour of you on YouTube?
对于一个普通人来说，读一小时的书或在 YouTube 上听一小时的内容会更好吗？
Which, by the way, they might do at 1.5x, so it could take less than an hour.
顺便说一句，他们可能会以 1.5 倍的速度完成任务，因此可能需要不到一个小时。
Right.
正确的。
Your original question was not, could people get history just by seeing me on YouTube.
你最初的问题不是，人们可以通过在 YouTube 上看到我来了解历史吗？
That’s a different answer.
这是一个不同的答案。
You could just put into YouTube search different historians at Harvard, at Princeton, at University of Virginia, and just listen to their talks.
你可以在 YouTube 上搜索哈佛大学、普林斯顿大学、弗吉尼亚大学的不同历史学家，然后听听他们的演讲。
Is that a better thing for people to do than to read their books?
对于人们来说，这比读书更好吗？
I would say no, but again, I’m of an older generation where I think books are the best place to get information, but most young people would not agree with me.
我会说不，但再说一次，我是老一辈，我认为书籍是获取信息的最佳场所，但大多数年轻人不会同意我的观点。
A fair number of older people would rather listen to something than to read it.
相当多的老年人宁愿听也不愿读。
I do think when you read, if you read with some patience, that there’s the possibility to absorb information — a fuller range of information.
我确实认为，当你阅读时，如果你有耐心阅读，就有可能吸收信息——更全面的信息。
I often will give talks, and people seem to like them, but I’m not always so sure that they’ve come away from that talk with as deep an understanding as I think they would if they read the same thing as the text.
我经常发表演讲，人们似乎很喜欢演讲，但我并不总是那么确定他们在演讲后是否能像我想象的那样，在读到与文本相同的内容时获得深刻的理解。
I have one more question, but let me just repeat my enthusiasm for your book, by Alan Taylor, American Civil Wars: A Continental History, 1850–1873.
我还有一个问题，但让我重复一下我对艾伦·泰勒所著的《美国内战：大陆史，1850-1873》一书的热情。
I’ve also read most of Alan’s books and find them all to be worthwhile.
我也读过艾伦的大部分书，发现它们都很有价值。
I know many other smart people who are big fans.
我认识许多其他聪明人，他们都是我的忠实粉丝。
Alan, thank you for chatting with me, but last question, what is it you will do next?
艾伦，谢谢你接受我的采访，但最后一个问题，你接下来会做什么？
I’m working on a project, which is about a set of plantations in Virginia in the early 19th century in the part of Virginia where Nat Turner’s revolt occurred.
我正在做一个项目，该项目是关于 19 世纪初弗吉尼亚州纳特·特纳叛乱发生地的一组种植园。
It’s plunged me into the archives, into this fabulously rich collection, which has not been used by historians before.
它让我深入档案馆，深入研究这个极其丰富的藏品，而这些藏品以前从未被历史学家使用过。
And I’m hoping to tell a story that will show the ways in which environmental constraints and the market economy and slavery all intersect and contribute to the kinds of tensions that would culminate in Nat Turner’s revolt in 1831.
我希望讲述一个故事，展示环境限制、市场经济和奴隶制如何相互交叉，并导致各种紧张局势，最终导致 1831 年纳特·特纳的叛乱。
Alan Taylor, thank you very much.
艾伦·泰勒，非常感谢你。
Thank you, Tyler.
谢谢你，泰勒。
Photo Credit: (c) Dan Addison UVA University Communications
图片来源：(c) Dan Addison UVA 大学通讯