The Black Death, a severe epidemic that ravaged fourteenth-century Europe, has intrigued scholars ever since Francis Gasquet's 1893 study contending that this epidemic greatly intensified the political and religious upheaval that ended the Middle Ages. Thirty-six years later, historian George Coulton agreed but, paradoxically, attributed a silver lining to the Black Death: prosperity engendered by diminished competition for food, shelter, and work led survivors of the epidemic into the Renaissance and subsequent rise of modern Europe.

In the 1930s, however, Evgeny Kosminsky and other Marxist historians claimed the epidemic was merely an ancillary factor contributing to a general agrarian crisis stemming primarily from the inevitable decay of European feudalism. In arguing that this decline of feudalism was economically determined, the Marxist asserted that the Black Death was a relatively insignificant factor. This became the prevailing view until after the Second World War, when studies of specific regions and towns revealed astonishing mortality rates ascribed to the epidemic, thus restoring the central role of the Black Death in history.

This central role of the Black Death (traditionally attributed to bubonic plague brought from Asia) has been recently challenged from another direction. Building on bacteriologist John Shrewsbury's speculations about mislabeled epidemics, zoologist Graham Twigg employs urban case studies suggesting that the rat population in Europe was both too sparse and insufficiently migratory to have spread plague. Moreover, Twigg disputes the traditional trade-ship explanation for plague transmissions by extrapolating from data on the number of dead rats aboard Nile sailing vessels in 1912. The Black Death, which he conjectures was anthrax instead of bubonic plague, therefore caused far less havoc and fewer deaths than historians typically claim.

Although correctly citing the exacting conditions needed to start or spread bubonic plague, Twigg ignores virtually a century of scholarship contradictory to his findings and employs faulty logic in his single-minded approach to the Black Death. His speculative generalizations about the numbers of rats in medieval Europe are based on isolated studies unrepresentative of medieval conditions, while his unconvincing trade-ship argument overlooks land-based caravans, the overland migration of infected rodents, and the many other animals that carry plague.

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Which of the following statements is most compatible with Kosminsky's approach to history, as it is presented in the passage?


The Middle Ages were ended primarily by the religious and political upheaval in fourteenth-century Europe.

The economic consequences of the Black Death included increased competition for food, shelter, and work.

European history cannot be studied in isolation from that of the rest of the world.

The number of deaths in fourteenth-century Europe has been greatly exaggerated by other historians.

The significance of the Black Death is best explained within the context of evolving economic systems.

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旨在考察我们对文章细节的认知

根据题设定位在文章的第二段。“K”的主旨意思是黑死病并非减少封建制度的主因。经济才是主因。



选项分析：

A选项：中世纪被14世纪的宗教和政治巨变所结束。“G”并没有承认中世纪是被宗教和政治巨变所结束的， “K”所讨论的重点在于经济决定了封建制度的腐朽。

B选项：黑死病的经济结果是食物，住所，和工作的竞争加剧。“K”没有提到这些竞争是否加剧的问题，提到这个是第一段的“C”，不过“C”的观点也是竞争变弱。

C选项：欧洲的历史不能被从别国的历史中孤立出来。这个选项的内容本身没错，但是这是最后一段作者的观点，不是“K”的观点。

D选项：14世纪欧洲的死亡人数被历史学家严重的夸大了。这个选项的内容出现在第二段最后部分。二战后发现死亡率很高。一这不是“K”的观点，二是与选项内容相反。

E选项：Correct. 黑死病的意义最好在经济系统下解释。定位在“In arguing that this decline of feudalism was economically determined, the Marxist asserted that the Black Death was a relatively insignificant factor.”。“K”认为黑死病是次要的因素，经济师主要的。所以在经济背景下考虑黑死病是最为符合“K”的理论的。

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