请举一些被当作历史“常识”但又不被历史学家接受的例子 [美国媒体]

-------------译者：古柯-审核者：babybaober------------

The Romans had a high incidence of bulimia and/or homosexuality.

罗马人厌食症和/或同性恋的发病率很高。。

Medi suits of armor reduced your range of motion so "if you can just knock a knight over he won't be able to get himself back up."

中世纪的盔甲会降低你的行动范围，所以“如果你能击倒一个骑士，他自己是站不起来的”。

Cleopatra/Jesus/Hannibal/Pharaoh was black.

埃及艳后/耶稣/汉尼拔/法老是黑人。

History's marches riots protests and revolutions were ad hoc and driven by the poor and oppressed.

历史上的游行，暴动，抗议贺革命都是临时的，由穷人和受压迫的人领导的。

Most cannibals ate their captives.

大部分食人族会吃掉他们的俘虏。

The Mayans were peaceful and the Aztecs were bloodthirsty.

玛雅人爱好和平，而阿兹特客人则嗜血。

-------------译者：渣渣的喵-审核者：babybaober------------

These are just a few things off the top of my head that "everyone knows" and I was taught in many history classes but historians almost universally consider incorrect.  What are other things "in the common knowledge" about history that historians almost universally consider untrue?  

这些只是我头脑中“大家都知道”的几件事，我在许多历史课上被教过，但历史学家几乎普遍认为是错误的。历史学家普遍认为不真实的关于历史的“常识”是什么？

(I'd really love it if the answers weren't just negative or unsourced accusations about some famous character's "real motivations.")

我非常欢迎那些正面回答而且没有某种原因故意歪曲事实的答案。


-------------译者：彼岸曼陀罗-审核者：babybaober------------

Spencer P Morrison Editor-In-Chief National Economics Editorial
upxed Mar 7
Those are some good examples I’ll add another to your collection.

那些都是很好的例子，我再给你的收藏中加入另一个例子。

Myth #1: Ancient people died young 40 was considered “old”.

古代人能活到40岁已经是够老的了。

This one’s caused because people don’t understand how life expectancy works.

造成这一点的原因之一是人们不理解预期寿命是怎么算的。

The reason they estimate the average life expectancy was ~40 in the ancient world was because of high child mortality rates and to a lesser degree death in warfare.

在古代他们预估平均寿命为40岁，是因为极高儿童的死亡率和比儿童死亡率略低一点的战争死亡率。

When 1/3 of children die before the age of 5 this really skews the average downwards.

当1 / 3的儿童于5岁前夭折，这就拉低了平均。

However if you made it to adulthood you had a very good chance (unless there was a major war or a one-in-a-century plague) of making it into your 70s and beyond (which is when the human body begins to deteriorate at a high rate).

但是如果你活到成年，则很有机会挺进70岁（此时人体健康高速恶化）或更久（除非有大型战争或百年一遇的鼠疫）。

-------------译者：彼岸曼陀罗-审核者：babybaober------------

How do we know that?

我们怎么会知道的？

People who live as their ancestors did in Sicily & Sardinia are some of the longest-lived & healthiest people in the world. The average life expectancy is well over 80 many make it to 100. Their lifestyle hasn’t changed dramatically in 1000s of years so there’s no reason to assume what works today didn’t work back then.

以祖先同样生活方式住在西西里岛和撒丁岛上的人是世界上最长寿和最健康的人群之一。平均预期寿命超过80，许多人活过100岁。他们的生活在过去1000年里没有发生巨大变化，所以没理由假设适用于当今的在古代行不通。

Historical evidence points to people living a long time. For example the Roman senate was only open to people over 70 years of age—presumably most elites expected to serve on the senate & most assumed they’d have a good decade or two serving on it in good health (otherwise the age probably would’ve been lower). Aristotle points out in “Politics” that your average woman’s prime childbearing years were 20–50 & for a man it was 30–70. Presumably they were healthy enough to raise children to adulthood at those ages (meaning Aristotle thought men could reasonably expect to live over 70 probably into their 80s or 90s).

历史证据表明人们能活很久。例如，罗马元老院只对70岁以上的人开放，想必大多数精英都希望在参议院任职，大多数人认为他们能以健康状态供职一二十年（否则年龄限制可能会降低）。亚里士多德在“政治学”中指出，妇女的生育年龄为20 - 50岁，而男人的是30 - 70岁。想来，他们在那个年龄段的健康状况足以抚育孩子们长大成人（这意味着亚里士多德认为人类可以合理地期望活过70岁，能到80或90岁）

-------------译者：渣渣的喵-审核者：龙腾翻译总管------------

There are lots of old people in history. Socrates was executed in his 70s. Plato lived until he was 100. The list is endless. The fact is that Europe’s climate (cold in the north dry in the south) is very amenable for life. Also the diet was quite healthy people stayed active & there wasn’t that much disease because people didn’t live in close proximity to animals (relative to ancients in China & India where all the plagues came from).

历史上有许多老人。苏格拉底在70岁时被处死，帕拉图活到100岁。名单是无尽的。事实上，欧洲的气候（北方寒冷南方干燥）是非常适合生活的。同时由于饮食组合健康，人们保持活跃而且居所跟动物保持距离，所以并没有太多的疾病（相对于中国和印度，所有的瘟疫来自动物）。

For further reading see Nassim Taleb’s “Antifragile” it has a good chapter on medical iatrogenics & history.

进一步阅读，请看Nassim Taleb的《反脆弱》，里面有相关的好文章。

-------------译者：古柯-审核者：babybaober------------

Myth #2: The Industrial Revolution was caused by free trade.

神话#2：工业革命是由自由贸易引发的

I hear this one all the time from “economists” (aka pseudo-intellectuals who lack practical experience in either business or trading but nevertheless pretend they know how to make money).

我一直听“经济学家”这么说（又叫伪知识分子，在商业和贸易方面缺乏实践，而又假装他们知道怎么赚钱）

This one is downright false: the Industrial Revolution happened during a time when Britain was economically isolated due to war and had import tariffs of over 50% on manufactured goods.

这一条是彻头彻尾的错误：工业革命的时候，不列颠因为战争而被孤立，工业制成品的进口关税超过50%

Britain practiced (extreme) economic protectionism—not free trade—before and during the Industrial Revolution (read more about that in the lixed article).

在工业革命结束前，不列颠实行的是（极端的）经济保护主义——不是自由贸易，（在以下条目中阅读更多有关信息）。

What actually caused the Industrial Revolution? Necessity. Britain was (1) small & (2) needed to keep up economically with its enemies.

是什么实际引发了工业革命？必要性，（1）不列颠很小，（2）需要在经济上赶上它的敌人

-------------译者：古柯-审核者：龙腾翻译总管------------

1. Great Britain was tiny but had big enemies.

1.大不列颠很小，但是有众多强大的敌人

a) You can get a sense of how small it was in the following chart:

a) 在下面这个图表中你可以感受一下它有多小



b) Here’s a list of the major wars Britain fought against these rivals (and others) during the relevant time period.
The War of Austrian Succession (1740-48) against France Spain Prussia and Sweden.
The Seven Year’s War (1756-63) against France Spain the Holy Roman Empire Russia and Sweden.
The American Revolutionary War (1775-83) against the USA France Spain and the Netherlands.
The French Revolutionary Wars (1793-1802) against France and her allies and Spain.
The Napoleonic Wars (1803-15) against France and her allies Spain and Poland.
The Anglo-Turkish War (1807-09) against the Ottoman Empire.
The Anglo Russian War (1807-12) against Russia.
The War of 1812 against the USA.
The list could be 3x as long but you get the point.

b) 这有一份名单列出了在这个时间段，主要战争中不列颠面对的那些对手（其他势力）
奥地利王位继承战争(1740-48)对抗法国、西班牙、普鲁士和瑞典
七年战争(1756-63)对抗法国、西班牙、神圣罗马帝国、俄国和瑞典
美国革命战争 (1775-83)对抗美国、法国、西班牙和荷兰
法国革命战争 (1793-1802)对抗法国及其盟国和西班牙
拿破仑战争(1803-15) 对抗法国及其盟国、西班牙和波兰
英土战争(1807-09) 对抗奥斯曼帝国
英俄战争 (1807-12) 对抗俄国
1812年反美战争
这份清单有三倍这么长，但是你应该明白了

Basically Great Britain was under enormous pressure: it had to build just as many bullets & ships & uniforms as big countries like France but had to do it with 1/4 the population.

基本上大不列颠处在巨大的压力下：它必须生产大量的子弹、舰船、制服，依靠法国1/4的人口达到法国水平。

This meant that the British economy provided enormous financial incentives to invent ways of saving labor (if you could improve efficiency you got super rich).

这意味着不列颠的经济提供巨大的财政刺激来发明节约劳动力的方法（如果你能提高效率，你会非常富有）

-------------译者：古柯-审核者：龙腾翻译总管------------

2. This necessity led to a number of key inventors & inventions chief among them being:

2. 当他们这么做的时候，必然产生了大量关键发明家和发明

Edmund Cartwright who invented the power loom. This was an automated machine that wove cloth. It made British weavers 40x as efficient as they were before.

埃德蒙卡特赖特 发明了动力织布机。这是一种织布的自动机器。它的效率是不列颠织工之前的40倍



James Watt’s steam engine (which built on Thomas Newcomen’s earlier design) was also important since it provided rotary power (which was useful for machinery) & was twice as efficient. This allowed factories to be built anywhere (rather than on rivers) since they could be powered by coal.
The takeaway point here is that free trade had nothing to do with the Industrial Revolution although many libertarian economics like to think it did.

詹姆斯瓦特的蒸汽机（基于托马斯 纽科文稍早的设计）因为提供了旋转的动力也很重要（对于驱动机械很有用），而且可以使效率翻倍。让工厂可建在任何地方（不只是河边）因为它们用煤作为动力（而不是水车）。这里的要点是，自由贸易没对工业革命有任何影响，尽管很多自由主义经济学家喜欢认为它有。

 -------------译者：tomandjerry-审核者：babybaober------------

Austin Fagbade Constantly trying to be better at History over 10 years and still going strong.
Written Dec 10
That The Invention of The Wheel Was Basic

轮子的发明是个基本问题





（图中对话：轮子？哈哈，它永远不会流行起来的！）

Much of the general population has been indoctrinated by years of caveman cartoons ancient invention jokes and as “old as the wheel” adages into believing that the wheel is inherently one of the most rudimentary devices that can be devised by humans surpassed in simplicity only by the likes of fire and walking upright.

普通大众长期被原始人动画片灌输了远古发明的笑话，当“像轮子一样古老”像谚语一样成为了信仰，那么轮子自然就变成了被人类发明的、在简单方面可能仅次于利用火和直立行走的最初步技术之一。

This is far and away the most pervasive urban legend in modern culture the invention of the wheel was anything but basic and has occurred just once I reiterate once in human history making it one of the most fortuitous innovations ever devised in its complexity putting it on par with the zero and indeed steam engine.

这无疑是一种现代文明最流行的都市传说。轮子的发明根本不简单，而且只发生了一次，我重申，一次。在人类历史上，它的复杂性使它成为人们所制造的最偶然的发明之一，与数字零和蒸汽机同等级。

Now some background

现在给出一些背景。

-------------译者：tomandjerry-审核者：80454782------------

The Complexity of The Wheel

轮子的复杂性

Contrary to Stone Age cartoons the earliest known wheel appeared around 3 500 BC in Mesopotamia where it wasn’t used for vehicular transport but rather for pottery spoked wheels appeared only in 2000 BC. Humans had already smelted bronze tools built the earliest Pyramids constructed detailed mazed complexes of Mycenean legend crafted sail boats and even made irrigation canals. It was around this late anything but prehistoric period that the first wheel appeared.

与石器时代动画片们相反，最早的轮子出现在约公元前3500年的美索不达米亚。它并不是用于车辆交通，而是用于制陶的。带有轮辐的轮子公元前2000年才出现。人类已经会熔炼铜制工具，建造最早的金字塔，制造迈锡尼传说中复杂的迷宫，制造航船，甚至建造灌溉渠道。第一个轮子出现大约是这么晚的事情，根本不是远古时期。

The wheel took so long to appear precisely because of its complexity as a cut off cylinder needs an axle to become a wheel leading to an “all or nothing” scenario where three things must be fulfilled;

轮子经过这么长时间才出现，完全是因为它的复杂度。因为一个加工好的圆柱体还需要一根轴才能成为轮子，这导致了一个“要么齐全要么没有”的场景，三种东西必须同时满足。

-------------译者：tomandjerry-审核者：80454782------------

The axle or stationary platform must be rounded and fit snugly into the centre of the cylinders.

转轴或固定平台必须做圆，并且与圆柱体中心紧密配合。

The axle must be thick enough to support any load placed on the vehicle.

转轴必须足够厚实，能够支撑车辆上的所有载荷。

The axle must be thin enough to prevent friction from negating the movement of the wheel.

转轴必须足够轻薄，避免摩擦消解轮子的运动。

Only one people or person in all of human history got this right and from whom the wheel spread throughout Eurasia. Who they were is still a matter of debate with the Mesopotamians naturally being the favoured party. Whoever it was however did something peerless and did so very late in human history so the notion of “as old as the wheel” is not only universally considered incorrect it’s flat out false.

人类历史上只有一族人或一个人做对，就是从他开始，轮子传遍欧亚大陆。他们是谁还在争论中，美索不达米亚人自然是最佳人选。然而不管是谁，这件事做得无与伦比，而且在人类历史上很晚才出现。所以“像轮子一样古老”这种说法不止是有误，而是完全扯淡。

Thank you Livescience.

谢谢你Livescience。

-------------译者：740644252-审核者：兽人也有春天------------

Judith Meyer German with a strong interest in history & current events
Written Sep 13 2015
That European nations have existed for more than 300 years.

欧洲国家已经存在了超过300年。

For thousands of years the borders between cultures (traditions customs languages) in Europe were much more fluid than today. It was not possible to say e. g. "These are the French" "These are the Germans" and "These are the Italians" because the cultures flowed into each other. People also did not feel French German Italian whatever because that thought only came up in the 18th century. People felt allegiance to their family and their village not to larger cultural units. 

数千年来，欧洲文化（传统，习俗，语言）的边界要比今天更具有流动性。因为在过去文化之间相互流动，所以当时不太可能说“这些是法国人的”、“这些是德国人的”、"这些是意大利人的”，因为文化在相互交融。过去，人们无论如何也不会感觉到法国、德国和意大利人，因为这种想法直到18世纪才出现。人们对他们的家庭、村庄感到亲近而不是更大的文化单元。

There were countries but the countries did not map onto cultures. They were either small kingdoms or large multi-ethnic empires whose monarchs usually acquired territory through inheritance conquest or marriage without thought to the culture or language of the people whose rulers they became. There was no patriotic resistance to this practice until the 18th century. For the most part it wasn't a problem because the administration was local in the hands of feudal lords who did speak the local language and knew the local practices.

那时存在一些国家，但是这些国家和文化并不重叠。它们要么是小王国要么是大的多民族的帝国，它们的统治者通常通过遗产继承或者姻亲获取领土，而不会考虑到统治的民众的文化或者语言。直到18世纪以来，都没有出现对这种惯例的爱国抵抗。就绝大部分情况而言，这种惯例并不是一个问题，因为当地管理掌握在封建领主手中，而他们说当地的语言并且了解当地的习俗。

-------------译者：tomandjerry-审核者：80454782------------

What changed?

什么变了？

Several factors led to the creation of distinguishable cultural units:

多个因素导致了可明确区分的文化单元的产生：

Book-printing. It would have been too expensive to print books in the hundreds of languages / dialects spoken in Europe at the time so printers supported the standardization of languages and the promotion of a few languages over others. Language is both an indicator and a means of creating different cultures because different languages give access to different information a different canon of folk tales and literature and so on.

书籍印刷。过去用当时欧洲的几百种语言/方言的印书成本太高，所以印刷机支持了语言的标准化，并且使若干种语言的地位超过了其他语言。语言既是创造不同文化的标志，又是其手段，因为不同的语言使人能接触不同的信息、不同的民间故事经典、不同的文学等等。

The reformation created new cultural distinctions in Europe because previously most had had the same beliefs celebrated the same church holidays used the same religious rituals and so on. It also encouraged people to think for themselves starting a wave of secular philosophers.

这种革新在欧洲创造了新的文化区分，因为过去大多数人有同样的信仰，庆祝同样的宗教节日，使用同样的宗教典礼等等。它也鼓励人们思考他们自己，诞生了一大批世俗哲学家。

States centralized their administration and weakened the feudal lords. This meant a need for a lot more state officials i. e. career opportunities for those who felt loyal to the state. The introduction of national languages and national education circuits meant that officials unlike feudal lords previously could not hope to keep their position if the territory fell to another country. Officials within one country would network while there was much less contact across the border furthering cultural differences.

国家集中了行政，弱化了封建领主。这意味着需要更多的国家官员职位，即那些想效忠国家的人的就业机会。官方语言和官方教育的引入意味着，国家官员不像封建领主，一旦国土落入外国手中，官员就无法再保持自己的地位。一个国家的官员会相互结网，而跨国境的接触要少得多，这进一步增大了文化差异。

-------------译者：tomandjerry-审核者：80454782------------

Later (this list is not chronological) with the advent of industrialization which brought schooling to a much larger share of the population the above affected everyone. (Even in our united EU it is not simple to have one country's certificate recognized in another.) This contains people within one country's borders and gives them a certain stake in that country's situation. The exposure to the public school system also creates distinguishable cultures especially when the state uses schools to spread a national narrative.

随后（下面不按时间顺序）随着工业化的降临给更广大的民众带来了教育，上述的内容就影响了每个人。（即便是在欧盟，一个国家的证明想在另一个国家生效也不容易）这使得人们被围在国界线以内，使他们将赌注押在了国家形势上。公立学校系统的开放，同样带来了可明确区分的文明，特别是当国家用学校传播国家思想的时候。

In the 19th century all European countries introduced national holidays museums and monuments telling the story of their nation uniting people by making them feel part of the same history. In most cases this history was a relatively new invention first heard at most 100 years ago even though it described the nation as having existed much earlier (e. g. in France every student learns: "our ancestors the Gauls...").

在19世纪，所有的欧洲国家都引入了国庆节，图书馆和纪念物诉说着他们国家的故事，通过使人们感觉同属于共同历史的一部分的方法来团结人民。在大多数情况下，这些历史还属于一种新发明，第一次出现最多不超过100年，尽管它将国家描述为更早就存在的东西。（例如，在法国每个学生都会学到：“我们的祖先是高卢人……”）

-------------译者：tomandjerry-审核者：80454782------------

The idea of nations

民族的概念

German philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803) was the originator of the idea that there are a number of distinguishable cultures in Europe. According to him just as every human has his own character formed by his past and his environment so each people has its own culture and mentality the Volksgeist formed by its past its environment and its livelihood. This was the birth of Cultural Nationalism. (Cultural because Herder did not talk politics at all)

德国哲学家约翰·哥特弗雷德·赫尔德（1744-1803）是最早意识到欧洲有多个可分辨的不同文明的人。根据他的观点，每个人的个性都由其过去的经历和当下的环境所造成，所以每个人都有自己的教养和精神，类似的，民族精神也是由其过去，环境和生计决定的。（说文化是因为赫德根本没有讨论政治）

-------------译者：tomandjerry-审核者：80454782------------

Another German philosopher created Political Nationalism: Johann Gottlieb Fichte. He thought that each nation stands above its individual members and the members have common characteristics because of Volksgeist distinguishing themselves from members of other nations. According to him national awareness lay slumbering in the unconsciousness of its members but eventually had to come to the front. After becoming aware each nation has the ability through its national will to decide its destiny by way of political struggle. The highest goal for a nation was the formation of a sovereign nation-state free of foreign influences. Fichte's philosophy created the picture of nationalism as an organic and natural development that each people was entitled to when the truth is that none of the peoples in Europe's previous thousands of years of history had had a nationalist awakening. His philosophy has been used to justify all later nationalist movements no matter if they're state nationalist separatist or integralist in nature.

另一个德国哲学家创造了政治民族主义：约翰·戈特利布·费希特。他认为，每个民族建立在它的每个成员之上，这些成员具有共同点，是因为民族精神把他们自己与其他民族进行了区分。根据他的观点，民族意识蛰伏在它无意识的成员中，但最终会来到前台。当意识到这一点，每个民族通过它们的民族意识，能够通过政治斗争决定它们的命运。一个民族的最高目标是组成一个无外界势力干涉的主权独立的民族国家。费希特的哲学观创造了民族主义这样一个图景，是每个人都有权享有的、有机和自然的发展，当时的事实是欧洲在过去几千年历史中还没有人有过民族觉醒。他的哲学正当化了所有随后的民族主义运动，无论它们实际上是国家民族主义、分离主义还是整体论。

-------------译者：tomandjerry-审核者：80454782------------

The aftermath

结果

Fichte's ideas initially had very little traction in Europe but sooner or later many governments and many people wanting to grab power saw the advantage of promoting the nationalist narrative. 

费希特的观点最初在欧洲没有足够的吸引力，但是最终许多希望获取权利的政府和人看到了宣传民族主义叙事的优势。

There's an essay by Stan Verschuuren which really opened my eyes - he narrates not just what I just explained here but also the further spread of the idea. He winds up telling the entire modern history of Europe from the 19th century Polish revolts to the German reunification and the Scottish independence movement through the lens of nationalism its pre-requirements for success and its motivations. I loved this essay so much that I attempted a translation (originally in Dutch) into English which you can find at Stan Verschuuren on Nationalism. Go read it!

Stan Verschuuren的一篇论文使我打开了眼睛——他不仅讲述了我前面解释的东西，而且讲述了这个观点更广泛的传播。他通过民族主义视角，它成功的前提和动机，讲述了从19世纪波兰起义到德国统一和苏格兰独立运动的整个欧洲现代历史。我特别喜欢这篇论文，我尝试进行了翻译成英文（原版是荷兰文），你们可以在《Stan Verschuuren论民族主义》读到。读一读吧！

-------------译者：tomandjerry-审核者：80454782------------

Seth Pace ALB Religious Studies & History Harvard Extension School (2017)
Written Nov 3 2011
"People laughed at Columbus because nobody believed that the Earth was round."  It's more accurate that they laughed at him because Eratosthenes calculated in the 3rd century BC that the Earth was so large that to go west from Europe and hit Asia would mean the crew would starve to death at sea.  Columbus was in fact very wrong about the shape of the Earth and his detractors would have been correct if not for the "discovery" of the Americas.

“人们嘲笑哥伦布，因为没人相信地球是圆的。”更精确的说法是，他们嘲笑他是因为埃拉托色尼【注：古希腊天文学家】在公元前3世纪时候就计算过。地球太大了，如果要从欧洲往西走，一直走到亚洲，那么船员得在海上饿死。哥伦布实际上对地球形状的认识非常错误，如果不是“发现”了美洲的话，他的批评者才是对的。

The idea that religion has a long-standing hatred of science is almost entirely a modern invention that few people bother to question.  With the exception of Galileo the rivalry between science and religion mostly grew as a result of Darwin's popularizing of evolution.  True to Hegelian form literal interpretation of the bible actually became more of a contention among religious groups in the past century and a half.  In general Christianity Islam and Judaism have each had a very positive effect on the growth of science even if contemporary debate makes this idea seem absurd.

认为宗教长期以来憎恶科学这个观点，这完全是一个没几个人愿意质疑的现代发明。除了伽利略这个例外，科学和宗教的对抗始是因为达尔文的物种进化论的普及。从黑格尔派的角度看，对圣经的字面解读只有在最近的这150年才更多的成为宗教团体间的争论焦点。总体上，基督教伊斯兰教和犹太教过去都对科学的进步产生了正面影响，尽管当代的争论使这个观点显得荒谬。

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Native American culture tends to be highly over-romanticized in terms of their stewardship of the land and peaceful nature.  Obviously they didn't violate the land as much as the Europeans did and they suffered immeasurably more under white suppression than by local rivalries.  At the same time much of the hippie fixation on pre-Columbian culture is rather condescending and fails to understand that the natives were both pragmatic and human.

印第安人文化倾向于用他们超浪漫的管理方式对待土地和自然和谐。很显然他们不会像欧洲人那样暴力的对待土地问题，而且他们持续承受的白人镇压也远远超过当地的竞争者。同时，对前哥伦布文化的迷恋则是相当傲慢的，没能理解印第安人其实也是务实和人性的。

In general every generation tends to regard the previous generations as being unrealistically violent and inherently savage.

大体上来说每代人都会认为上一代人不切实际的暴力而且天性野蛮。