Now go through TEXT G quickly to answer the question.

Since the advent of television people have been prophesying the death of the book. Now the rise of the World Wide Web seems to have revived this smoldering controversy from the ashes. The very existence of paper copy has been brought into question once more.

It might be the bookstore, rather than the book itself, that is on the brink of extinction. Many of you will have noted lots of bookseller websites popping up. They provide lists of books and let you read sample chapters, reviews from other customers and interviews with authors.

What does all this mean? Browsing a virtual bookstore may not afford you the same dusty pleasure as browsing round a real shop, but as far as service, price and convenience are concerned, there is really no competition. This may change before long, as publisher's websites begin to offer direct access to new publications.

Perhaps it is actually the publisher who is endangered by the relentless advance of the Internet. There are a remarkable number of sites republishing texts online -- an extensive virtual library of materials that used to be handled primarily by publishing companies.

From the profusion of electronic-text sites available, it looks as if this virtual library is here to stay unless a proposed revision to copyright law takes many publications out of the public domain. However, can electronic texts still be considered books?

Then again, it might be the editor at risk, in danger of being cut out of the publishing process. The web not only makes it possible for just about anyone to publish whatever they like -- whenever they like -- there are virtually no costs involved. The editors would then be the millions of Internet users. And there is little censorship, either.

So possibly it is the printed page, with its many limitations, that is perishing as the implications of new technologies begin to be fully realized. Last year Stanford University published the equivalent of a 6,000-page Business English dictionary online. There seem to be quite obvious benefits to housing these multi-volume reference sets on the Web. The perceived benefits for other books, such as the novel, are perhaps less obvious.

TEXT H

First read the question.

29. The reviewer's attitude towards the book is
        A. ambiguous
        B. objective
        C. doubtful
        D. hostile
正确答案是

Now go through TEXT H quickly to answer the question.

The 1990s have witnessed a striking revival of the idea that liberal democratic political systems are the best basis for international peace. Western statesmen and scholars have witnessed a worldwide process of democratization, and tend to see it as a sounder basis for peace than anything we have had in the past.

Central to the vision of a peaceful democratic world has been the proposition that liberal democracies do not fight each other, that they may and frequently do get into fights with illiberal states, but not with other countries that are basically similar in their political systems. The proposition appeals to political leaders and scholars as well.

Yet it is doubtful whether the proposition is strong enough to bear the vast weight of generalization that has been placed on it. Among the many difficulties it poses, two stand out: first, there are many possible exceptions to the rule that democracies do not fight each other, and second, there is much uncertainty about why democracies have, for the most part, not fought each other.

Liberal Peace, Liberal War: American politics and international security by John M. Owen is an attempt to explain the twin phenomena of liberal peace (why democracies do not fight each other) and liberal war (why they fight other states, sometimes with the intent of making them liberal).

Owen's analysis in the book strongly suggests that political leaders on all sides judged a given foreign country largely on the basis of its political system; and this heavily influenced decisions on whether or not to wage war against it. However, he also shows that military factors, including calculations of the cost of going to war, were often influential in tipping the balance against war. In other word, democratic peace does not mean the end of power politics.

Owen hints at, but never address directly, a sinister aspect of democratic peace theory: its assumption that there would be peace if only everybody else was like us. This can lead only too easily to attempts to impose the favored system on benighted foreigners by force -- regardless of the circumstances and sensibilities that make the undertaking hazardous.

Owen's central argument is not strengthened by the occasional repetition nor by the remorselessly academic tone of the more theoretical chapters. However, most of the writing is succinct; the historical accounts are clear and to the point; and the investigation of the casual links between liberalism and war is admirably thorough.

There are several grounds on which the book's thesis might be criticized. The most obvious is that some twentieth-century experience goes against the argument that liberal states ally with others, above all, because they perceive them as fellow liberals. In our own time, several liberal democracies have maintained long and close relations with autocracies. However, Owen's argument for a degree of solidarity between liberal states provides at least part of the explanation for the continuation and even expansion of NATO in the post-Cold-War era.