《蘇格蘭人如何發明現代世界》章节试读

《蘇格蘭人如何發明現代世界》的笔记-第318页 - 经世致用

相较于苏格兰，英格兰的政治改革脚步缓慢。到了一八六八年，格拉斯哥有三分之二选民是劳工阶级Political change did not come as quickly or with as wide a reach as in England, but by 1868, fully two-thirds of Glasgow's electorate was working class.
我就说，英格兰的政改难道比苏格兰还慢吗

《蘇格蘭人如何發明現代世界》的笔记-第303页 - 经世致用

不只是句子成分，译者连整句话甚至整段话也能删掉。
这个点子的确很聪明；威尔斯的矿工就是利用这种设备吸出矿坑内的积水。【Newcomen's "fire-engine," as some called it,】 was a clever device; miners in Wales had been using 【its up-and-down motion】 to pump water out of their coal pits.
虽然对音乐一窍不通，他先花了几个礼拜努力钻研管风琴的设计原理和内部构造，挑选适合的材料，绘图设计，独立制成这台管风琴。Watt, who knew nothing about music, mastered the subject over a few weeks, learned everything he could about organs, chose the necessary materials, lad out the design, and built the organ himself. 【These sorts of projects happily absorbed all his attention.】
蒸汽机是英格兰佬纽考门和赛佛瑞（Thomas Savery）两人的创见。瓦特的功劳是大幅改良并拓展蒸汽机的应用。他在一七八一年提出分隔式凝结装置，让机器得以持续运转，创造了工业革命的发动机。Two Englishmen, Newcomen and Thomas Savery, did that. 【What Watt did was typically Scottish: he perfected something created by someone else, and gave it a higher and wider application than its original inventor had imagined.】 Watt applied to the steam engine the idea of separate condensation, which allow it to generate a constant motion, which, in 1781, 【Watt turned into a rotary motion.】
将原本只是汲水帮浦的蒸汽机提升为能源供应器，从炼铁厂、陶瓷高炉到格拉斯哥的港湾疏浚，各种产业无所不包。They turned the steam engine from primarily a water pump into a way to supply power for every conceivable industry, from 【John Wilkinson's】 ironworks and 【Josiah Wedgewood's（此处应为Wedgwood，疑为作者笔误）】 pottery kilns to 【feeding the Birmingham Canal and】 dredging Glasgow's port.
最神奇的是，在“发挥隐藏在自然界的力量，将大为增进人类的福祉”这句话之后，有整整一个自然段被删掉了。
"Nature has its weak side," Watt liked to say, "if only we can find it." Finding that weakness was the job of science. Exploiting the opening that science provided was the job of the engineer - and his business sidekick, the entrepreneur.
另外这一节还有很严重的翻译错误，如当波顿领着鲍斯伟到位于伯明罕苏荷区的厂区参观，鲍氏不禁赞叹：“就本人所见，此处展现了世人共同追逐的目标：权力！”【That became clear when】 James Boswell visited their Soho works outside Birmingham, and Boulton showed him around, uttering the 【famous】 phrase: "I sell here, sir, what all the world desires to have: power."
译者把sell看成了see，顺带把这句名言的主人从Boulton变成了Boswell……
此外就不提“炼铁厂厂长（ironmaster）”被译成“铁匠”这种小错误了，太多……

《蘇格蘭人如何發明現代世界》的笔记-第42页 - 再造圣城

新任皇室把焦点转向海外，与法王路易十六开展，民间积怨日深，詹姆士党人趁势而起。路易十六？？？当然是路易十四啊。
而且皇室和王室不能乱用啊。

《蘇格蘭人如何發明現代世界》的笔记-第114页 - 善恶之间

这位译者很喜欢漏译啊。我把原文中被遗漏的部分都用【】标注出来，小漏译就不计了，这里只列严重的
接近八十高龄的荷姆，在著作《人类历史素描》中修订补充了四阶段的社会演化论，替后代的史学研究奠定了基础，包括吉朋的巨著《罗马帝国兴亡史》；The four-stage theory, which Kames revised and refined in his Sketches on the History of Man when he was nearly eighty, would live on after him. 【It served as the model for William Robertson and others of the "Scottish historical school,"】 and for the great masterpiece 【of Enlightenment history】, Edward Gibbon's The decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
还有“衰亡史”变“兴亡史”这种错误
他们在乎的议题不是种族，而是人类拥有自由的权利。奈兹（Joseph Knights）的案子就是活生生的例证The fundamental issue for them was not race but human liberty, 【much as it was for Francis Hutcheson.】 And the proof of it came in the Joseph Knight case.
还有Knight变Knights这种错误
案子呈上伯斯法院，法官却判定苏格兰不许蓄奴，牙买加的法律不适用于苏格兰，When the case came before the Sheriff of Perth, however, he ruled that there was no slavery in Scotland, and that the 【slave】 laws of Jamaica had no validity in his jurisdiction.
判决即将改写历史。History was about to be made, 【and not just for Scot-land.】
哈奇森慈悲为怀、宅心仁厚，荷姆恰恰相反。他强调人类“利欲熏心”的冷酷观点，启发了休谟，也让哈奇森的信徒大表不满。If Francis Hutcheson represents the soft, humane side 【of the Scottish Enlightenment and the Scottish character】, Kames represents its hard, cold-eyed edge. His 【sardonic】 view of the primacy of self-interest and the "thirst for opulence" anticipates what comes late in the works of David Hume, and dismays champions of Hutcheson's 【moral altruism】.

《蘇格蘭人如何發明現代世界》的笔记-第34页 - 再造圣城

长老教会的意图非常明显，就是要保证每位孩童都能阅读圣经。在研究政治史和宗教史的时候，绝对不能低估的是识字率的意义。在作者看来，苏格兰之所以能在十七世纪“发明”现代世界，扫盲功不可没。本书大半苏格兰启蒙运动的先锋以及工业革命的发明家，都受益于诺克斯当年在First Book of Discipline中的宏伟梦想和苏格兰议会School Act的切实行动
不识字的人中有没有出过思想家？有。六祖惠能。陈寅恪称他“一扫僧徒繁琐章句之学”。禅宗不立文字，从达摩到弘忍皆无文字流传，他们的思想只有自己的弟子能一知半解。惠能的佛法却因为弟子编成《坛经》而影响汉传佛教乃至中国思想上千年。

《蘇格蘭人如何發明現代世界》的笔记-序曲 - 序曲

英格兰人对于查理二世的记忆是个好脾气的混蛋，但在苏格兰，他麾下的军队却四处扑杀反叛其父王的全国教徒连署分子。许多当年请求威廉和玛丽不要赦免爱肯海的教士，如今也必须隐瞒自己的信仰，在高山深谷中如野兽一般被追赶，眼睁睁看着有人邻居被谋害，或是被送到大西洋彼岸去当奴隶。Many of the Presbyterian ministers who asked William and Mary not to save Thomas Aikenhead could tell of having to go into hiding for their faith...
译者把威廉玛丽和查理二世的先后顺序都搞反了，闹出这种笑话