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      考研英语阅读能力想提升，需要考生不断地日积月累阅读文章才能感受到进步!接下来，小编为帮助考生补习英语阅读能力的不足，特意整理——2022考研英语经济学人:美国炸弹与柬埔寨农业，供考生参考。

2022考研英语经济学人:美国炸弹与柬埔寨农业

American bombing 50 years ago still shapes Cambodian agriculture

美国50年前的轰炸仍然影响着今天柬埔寨的农业

Farmers avoid fertile areas whose soft earth may contain unexploded ordnance

农民们不敢在那些可能存在未引爆炸弹的肥沃土地耕种

Farmers usually consider themselves lucky to till fertile soil. In Cambodia, however, such land often signifies danger rather than abundance. When America dropped an estimated 1.8m tonnes of explosives on the country during the Vietnam war, those falling on flinty ground generally detonated, whereas many landing on softer earth did not.

通常来说，有肥沃的土地耕种对农民而言是很幸运的。然而，在柬埔寨，这样的土地往往意味着危险，而非富饶。在越南战争期间，美国向柬埔寨投下了约180万吨炸弹，那些落在坚硬地面的炸弹通常会直接爆炸，而许多落在松软地面上的炸弹则没有引爆。

No one knows how many bombs remain in rich soil. But a paper by four academics at Ohio State University (OSU), who studied satellite images and reports by landmine-removal groups from a single village, found that perhaps half of the munitions have not exploded.

没有人知道肥沃的土地中留下了多少未引爆的炸弹。不过，俄亥俄州立大学的四位学者对柬埔寨某村庄的的卫星地图和扫雷小组的报告进行了研究，他们在论文中指出，可能有近一半的炸弹都没有爆炸。

These wartime remnants have given the United States’ bombing campaign of 1965-73—which ostensibly targeted Viet Cong supply lines, but caused perhaps 150,000 deaths—an enduringly lethal legacy.

这些战争遗留物成为了美国1965-1973年轰炸行动(表面上是针对越共补给线，但实际却造成了大约15万人死亡)的一个长期存在的致命遗产。

Since 1979, unexploded ordnance has killed at least 19,000 people in Cambodia (though some may have been blown up by landmines from subsequent wars, rather than by American bombs). Cambodia now has the world’s highest rate of amputees.

自1979年以来，未引爆的炸弹造成了柬埔寨至少1.9万人死亡(尽管有些人可能是被随后战争中的地雷炸死的，而非美国的炸弹)。柬埔寨如今是全球截肢率最高的国家。

A recent study by Erin Lin, one of the OSU researchers, shows that America’s bombardment injured not just Cambodia’s people but its economy as well. She first interviewed farmers in the country, who said they thought that richer, darker soil presented an unusually high risk of hidden ordnance—especially in heavily bombed areas.

俄勒冈州立大学研究员林艾琳最近的一项研究表明，美国的狂轰滥炸不仅对柬埔寨人民的生命健康造成了伤害，同时也对柬埔寨的经济造成了损害。她先是采访了柬埔寨的农民，农民们表示，他们认为肥沃、深色的土壤里隐藏炸弹的风险更高——尤其是在重点轰炸区域。

They work in constant fear of explosions. Some said that they only planted crops in parts of their farms that they were confident contained no bombs, or that they used hand tools instead of machines to reduce the risk of detonation.

他们耕作时总担心有炸弹爆炸。一些人说，他们只会在最近确信没有炸弹的农场部分地区种植作物，或者使用手动工具而非机器进行耕作，以降低引爆炸弹的风险。

To quantify this behaviour, Ms Lin used agricultural and census records to produce village- and farm-level estimates of investment, productivity, income and soil quality. She then mapped these data to the precise sites of American bombing.

为了量化这种行为，林艾琳利用农业和人口普查记录，对农村和农场层面的投资、生产率、收入和土壤质量进行了估算。然后，她将这些数据与美国轰炸的确切地点相对应。

After making adjustments for factors such as rice prices and differences between regions in economic conditions before the war, she found that in areas with relatively barren earth, there was no relationship between the two variables. Historical bombardment does not affect farmers’ methods in such places, because bombs that hit rocky ground almost always exploded.

在调整大米价格和战前地区经济状况的差异等因素后，她发现，在土地相对贫瘠的地区，这两个变量并不相关。过去的轰炸不会影响这些地方农民的耕作方式，因为落在岩石土地的炸弹几乎都会爆炸。

However, in regions with rich soil, aerial attacks 50 years ago make a measurable difference today. Among farms in fertile areas, those in places that were bombed are unusually unproductive.

然而，在土地肥沃地区，50年前的轰炸给今天的柬埔寨造成了显著影响。那些处于轰炸地区的肥沃农场如今一片荒凉。

Ms Lin estimates that the share of land planted with crops is about 12 percentage points lower in such farms than in others located in similarly fruitful regions which were spared by the Americans. This shrinks harvests, reducing by half the amount of rice that owners have left over to sell after feeding themselves, and cutting incomes by 40%.

林艾琳估计，这些农场种植种植农作物的土地比例比其他免受美军轰炸地区的类似农场低12%左右。这样一来，收成就减少了，农民吃饱后剩余出售的粮食便减少了一半，收入也减少了40%。

Cambodia suffered years of war and genocide after the bombing ceased, and America is just one of many parties to blame for the country’s tribulations. Yet it is a testament to the horror of the bombing that despite the anguish that followed, its signature can still be detected today.

在美军停止轰炸后，柬埔寨有经历了多年战争和种族灭绝，而美国只是造成该国苦难的众多责任方之一。不过，尽管柬埔寨随后经历了巨大的苦难，但时至今日仍能找到美军轰炸的痕迹，这足以证明轰炸给人们带来了多么大的痛苦。

 

重难点词汇：

ordnance [ˈɔːrdnəns] n. 军火;大炮

detonate [ˈdetəneɪt] v. 引爆，爆炸

remnant [ˈremnənt] n. 剩余 adj. 剩余的

ostensibly [ɑːˈstensəbli] adv. 表面上;外表

genocide [ˈdʒenəsaɪd] n. 种族灭绝

tribulation [ˌtrɪbjuˈleɪʃn] n. 苦难;磨难;忧患

      以上是“2022考研英语经济学人:美国炸弹与柬埔寨农业”，希望对2022考研考生们，在英语阅读上面有所帮助!祝2022考研顺利!

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