WHAT ENGLAND GAVE TO THE WORLD

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 981.

1. Introduction

1.1 Read the text title and hypothesize what the text is about. Write down your hypothesis.

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1.2 What do you know concerning this issue? List your ideas in the table left column “I know”.

1.3 If you know answers to these questions write them down in the space given after each question.

1.4 Circle in the list the words and expressions you know. Write down their translation in the table and calculate the percentage of your lexical competence.

The American philosopher George Santayana warned, 'A country without a memory is a country of madmen'.

Britain really is great. These small isles off the western end of the Eurasian landmass have contributed far more to the well-being of the rest of humanity than any other country.

It is true Britain gave the world its most popular sport — football — which emerged in the 13th century in the north of England as a holy day game, and was given the modern rules in 1848 by undergraduates at Cambridge University.

But Britain has also given the world almost every other internationally played sport.

If you can score points by hitting or kicking something, it was almost certainly invented by Britain's leisured classes, keen on exercise, team spirit and clear rules. Golf originated in Scotland in the 15th century. Cricket emerged 700 years ago, and evolved into the game we have today.

The French may have invented the nearly obsolete real tennis, but the Victorians created modern tennis. Britain's rain prompted indoor tennis, and table tennis was born. Harrow School gave the world squash; Rugby School gave the world rugby; the Duke of Beaufort copied the game Poona from the Indians and gave the world badminton; the Marques of Queensberry took bare-knuckle pugilism and turned it into modern boxing, complete with gloves.

Every time people play table tennis in China, football in Brazil, cricket in Pakistan or golf in Japan, they are enjoying Britain's gifts to the world.

The one thing we do say about British that they are a nation of inventors.

A recent survey by the Science Museum complained that 58 per cent of Britons didn't realize they invented trains, and 77 per cent didn't realize they invented jet engines. Britain's engineers helped to revolutionize the world by building railways across Europe, the Americas, Africa and Asia.

In 1698 the military engineer Thomas Savery patented the first steam engine (later improved by James Watt), while in 1821 Michael Faraday invented the electric motor. In 1876 the Scotsman Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone; 50 years later John Logie Baird demonstrated television; and in 1989 Tim Berners-Lee invented the internet.

And so it goes on and on — the traffic light, the electromagnet, the underground train (which first ran near the site of the Edward Road), light bulbs, the pneumatic tyre (thanks, Mr. Dunlop), radar, the steel-ribbed umbrella, the thermos flask, the pocket calculator (thanks, Sir Clive), vaccination, penicillin and cloning (thanks, Dolly).

Britain's scientists have done more to unravel the mysteries of nature than any others. Of the four main forces of nature, Brits unraveled the mysteries of two — Newton with gravity and James Clerk Maxwell with electromagnetic radiation.

Darwin discovered evolution by natural selection, while Watson and Crick unpicked DNA. Of the three planets unknown to the ancients, two were discovered by the British. Sir William Herschel discovered Uranus in 1781, while in 1841 the Cambridge maths undergraduate John Adams, using orbit calculations, discovered Neptune (beating a French rival by a few months). Britain is second only to the US in the number of Nobel prizes it has won — twice as many as France and seven times as many as Italy and Japan.

Britain didn't just give the world industrialization, but the belief in economic and political liberty, in free markets and democracy, leading to the modern world's unprecedented affluence and freedom. Adam Smith, John Locke and John Stuart Mill won the arguments, and Britain's global influence spread them. Britain didn't invent democracy, but matured it over centuries and ensured that it became dominant.

Britain's greatest creations are the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, all stable, affluent, successful liberal democracies which have for more than a century been a magnet to the rest of the world. No other European country ever managed such an achievement. All stayed free of the tyrannies of fascism, communism and military dictatorship that benighted almost everywhere else.

With just 1 per cent of the world's population, Britain has united the world with a truly global language, allowing people to speak to people for the first time in history (French was little more than a language for elites). These islands make up less than a fifth of 1 per cent of the world's land area, and yet their capital dictates to the rest of the world its time zones and degrees of east and west.

Britain's cultural influence is far smaller than its scientific and political influence, but in the written word it is unrivalled.

Moliẻre and Goethe cannot challenge Shakespeare as the world's most important writer. More recently, British musicians from The Beatles to Dido have a global audience unmatched by those of any country other than its former colony, the US. British TV producers increasingly enjoy a similar status — is there any country that hasn't yet suffered Big Brother or Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

Britain's national story is the most extraordinary there is. Thomas Sowell, the leading African-American intellectual, wrote in his epic Conquests and Cultures, 'Much of the world today, including the United States, is still living in the social, cultural, and political aftermath of Britain's cultural achievements, its industrial revolution, its government of checks and balances, and its conquests around the world'.

The problem for Britain is not that it has too little to be proud of, but too much. After helping free Europe from fascism, Winston Churchill finally published his History of the English-Speaking Peoples and explained, 'It is in the hope that the contemplation of the trials and tribulations of our forefathers may not only fortify the English-speaking peoples of today, but also play some small part in uniting the whole world, that I present this account'. Today, the need for such a self-confident national story is as great as ever.

Glossary