【譯者言】 前年上半年，北京外国语大学英语学院教师梁昊博士请我读一遍她翻译的书稿《中西文明对比》3，帮她把一下质量关。她1996年在北外读硕士，后又读博士，我都是她导师，她的请求我不能不答应;更重要的是，我看书中有许多论述西方文化的经典选篇，这正是长期以来我的兴趣所在，于是欣然接受。然而一年过去了，由于手头事情比较多，一直没有抽出时间看她的译稿。2020年秋，北京外国语大学成立不久的北外学院请我为2019级的学生教翻译，第一学期是英译中。我想篇子不妨就从这本Comparing Civilizations和我一直在翻译的The Idea of a University里选，一举两得。课上完后，我又想，之前我上完一轮翻译课，都把译稿和注释整理出来，投给期刊，这次不妨故伎重演，区别仅在于这一次是二人同行。本刊主编欢迎我的这一想法，于是就开设了“译路同行” 这个栏目，邀请读者与译者同行。

Authors Preface

There is a story behind the origins of Comparing Civilizations： China and the West. In the autumn of 2001， when John G. Blair was serving as a Foreign Expert at Beijing Foreign Studies University， he saw that the materials being used to teach Western civilization were those adapted from an American textbook of some years before4. He remarked to the Professor in charge that these materials did not take into account the fact that the students studying them were not Americans but Chinese. The retort was： “Why dont you make us a course that will do just that？5” The result， several years and four revisions later， is the present CCCW.

There were some revealing steps6 along the way. Initially a course was proposed7 to senior professors8 of English at BFSU as an American-style Western civilization course： a chronological sequence moving from the Greeks to the Romans to the Europe of the Middle Ages and so on. The professors were unanimous in rejecting this model. They insisted that they want a “genuinely comparative course，” though9 at the time no one could point to a model of what that meant10， either in China or elsewhere. The obvious alternative structure was topical， with comparisons between the two civilizations taking place within a series of categories representing important cultural domains11. CCCW today is an evolved version of that kind of “genuinely comparative” format.

Readers of CCCW have often expressed a legitimate curiosity about the authors： their backgrounds and what led them to invest so much time and energy in this massive and unprecedented project. Here are some partial answers. Both authors came to this project with similar experiences， two of which proved crucial. The first was an American-style liberal arts college12 education： Brown University （1956） for Dr. John Blair and for Dr. Jerusha McCormack13 Wellesley14 College （1964）， where in an earlier generation15 Soong Meiling， better known in the West as16 Madame Chiang Kai-Shek， was educated.

Liberal-Arts Education

The ideas behind liberal-arts education were spelled out by Cardinal17 John Henry Newman in the mid-19th century. Newman conceived of college-level study as18 giving its students an education as opposed to training. To him， the most important goals of a university were not vocational19. Education in his sense20 aspires21 to broaden the mind. For example， it presumes that all forms of knowledge are related to each other. Hence， it strives to relate all academic disciplines to each other， at least on some level. Although students studying under such a conception do choose a major （principal subject） on which to concentrate， they are free to range widely22 among courses classified as electives. In fact， during the first year or two of most American colleges， students are typically required to spread attention over23 a variety of disciplines in the humanities or arts， as well as the social sciences and physical sciences. These24 are commonly designated as distribution requirements.

To satisfy such requirements， John Blair studied at an introductory level： Chemistry， Mathematics， and Biology; Economics， Psychology， and Sociology; Philosophy， History， and English Literature. His foreign language was French. When he was obliged25 to select a major， he chose Literature， English and American， as the least limiting field he had yet26 encountered. The liberal-arts emphasis taught him how to learn so later he could access Anthropology， Political Science， and Art History at need.

Similarly， distribution requirements ensured that Jerusha Hull McCormack left Wellesley College with a good grounding in Biology and Botany， as well as a working knowledge of Sociology， European History， English and Latin Literature. She studied these before she concentrated on her joint major27 of Fine Arts and Philosophy.

This breadth of educational background has made it possible for both authors to access the diversity of disciplines represented in CCCW. From there both went on to graduate study in English and American Literature. That led each to a Ph.D. （respectively at Brown University in 1962 and Brandeis University in 1973）. This stage of their studies constituted， in Western terms， professional training as opposed to their earlier liberal education. Their liberal arts education contributed more to CCCW than the research skills they learned as part of their professional training.                          ■

作者自序

《中西文明对比》这部书的背后有一个故事。2001 年秋，约翰·G.布莱尔在北京外国语大学担任外国专家，看到西方文明这门课的教材是根据美国前些年出版的教科书改编而成，便对负责这门课的老师说，这些教材没有考虑到学生是中国人而不是美国人。那位老师答道：“那您能不能为我们的学生量身定制一套教材呢？”结果就是，几年后，经过四轮修订，这部《中西文明对比》呈现在读者面前。

本書的编撰过程有些环节颇有意思。教程编写之初，笔者曾向北外的一些老教授提议，开设一门美国方式的西方文明课， 按照时间顺序，从古希腊和古罗马讲到中世纪欧洲等等。……