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An equine alliance
人類與馬的結(jié)盟
How the horse has moulded empires, wars and human affairs.
馬如何塑造了帝國、戰(zhàn)爭和人類事務(wù)。
The Horse. By Timothy Winegard.
《馬》，蒂莫西·瓦恩加德著。
Hoof Beats. By William Taylor.
《馬蹄陣陣》，威廉·泰勒著。
Raiders, Rulers and Traders. By David Chaffetz.
《劫掠者，統(tǒng)治者，貿(mào)易者》，大衛(wèi)·查菲茨。
There was nearly a world without horses.
曾經(jīng)世界上差一點沒有馬。
At the end of the last ice age warming temperatures turned the grasslands where horses roamed into swamps and forests.
在最后一個冰河時代末期，氣溫升高，將馬漫步的草原變成了沼澤和森林。
Humans hunted them heavily for meat.
人類曾為了獲得肉而大量獵殺馬。
Wild horses did, in fact, go extinct in North America around 7,600-12,000 years ago.
事實上，在大約7600到12000年前，北美地區(qū)的野馬確實滅絕了。
You could say that by stopping hunting and starting to domesticate and harness them, humans saved horses.
你可以說，通過停止捕獵、開始馴化和駕馭馬，人類拯救了它們。
Or you could say that horses decided to bet on people.
或者你可以說，馬決定把自己的命運賭在人類身上。
Humans were forever changed by their equine alliance.
人類因與馬結(jié)盟而永遠改變了。
Able to gallop at more than 40mph (64kph) and to convey heavy objects, horses altered the arc of empires and determined victors and losers in battle.
馬能夠以超過40英里/小時（64公里/小時）的速度疾馳，也能運送重物，從而改變了帝國的發(fā)展弧線，并決定了戰(zhàn)斗中誰勝誰敗。
Timothy Winegard, a historian, calls horses “humanity’s longest-serving weapon system”.
歷史學家蒂莫西·瓦恩加德將馬稱為“為人類服役時間最長的武器系統(tǒng)”。
They also transformed the way people could hunt, communicate, trade and even dress.
馬還改變了人們狩獵、交流、貿(mào)易甚至著裝的方式。
Trousers spread only after horses were domesticated, as an innovation for riding.
褲子是在馬被馴化之后才開始流行的，是為了騎馬而發(fā)明的。
The oldest surviving pairs, dating to 1300 BC, belonged to horsemen.
現(xiàn)存最古老的幾條褲子可追溯到公元前1300年，屬于某些騎手。
A herd of new books has come out looking at the horse’s impact on human history, though their approaches are very different.
最近出版了幾本新書，闡述了馬對人類歷史的影響，盡管這幾本書的論述方法大不相同。
David Chaffetz, a scholar of Asian history, focuses his deeply researched, elegantly written “Raiders, Rulers and Traders” on the interplay between horse-borne nomads and settled peoples, a defining aspect of Chinese, Indian and Persian civilisations.
亞洲歷史學者大衛(wèi)·查菲茨在其研究深入、文筆優(yōu)雅的《劫掠者，統(tǒng)治者，貿(mào)易者》中，聚焦于騎馬的游牧民族與定居民族之間的互動，這是定義了中國、印度和波斯文明的一個方面。
He argues that “What we now call the Silk Road should more accurately be called the Horse Road, for it was the horse, and not silk, that drew buyers and sellers together…to form the first large-scale international trading routes.”
他認為，“我們現(xiàn)在所說的絲綢之路應(yīng)該更準確地稱為馬之路，因為是馬而不是絲綢，將買家和賣家聚集在一起……從而形成了第一條大規(guī)模的國際貿(mào)易路線。”
The broadest and most accessible view comes from Mr Winegard.
最廣泛和最容易理解的觀點來自于瓦恩加德。
Ranging from horse anatomy to the role of horses in both world wars, his book is packed with fascinating detail.
從馬的解剖結(jié)構(gòu)到兩次世界大戰(zhàn)中馬的作用，他的書充滿了引人入勝的細節(jié)。
For example, by weight, Britain shipped more horse feed than ammunition to the western front in the first world war; 20 years later Hitler enlisted some 2.7m horses in the second.
例如，按重量計算，在第一次世界大戰(zhàn)期間，英國運往西邊戰(zhàn)線的馬飼料比彈藥還多；20年后，希特勒在第二次世界大戰(zhàn)中征用了約270萬匹馬。
In contrast, “Hoof Beats” by William Taylor, an academic and curator at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History, is based primarily on archaeology; unfortunately it reads like a competent textbook.
相比之下，由科羅拉多大學自然歷史博物館的學者兼館長威廉·泰勒所著的《馬蹄陣陣》主要基于考古學，不幸的是，它讀起來像是一本還算可以的教材。
