1. For people in Britain today, the chief significance of the prehistoric period is its sense of mystery. This sense finds its focus most easily in the astonishing monumental architecture of this period, the remains of which exist throughout the country.

对今天的英国人来说，史前时期的首要意义在于它的神秘感。这种感觉最容易聚焦在这一时期所创作的令人叹为观止的纪念性建筑，全国各处都有它们的遗址。

2. Such places have a special importance for some people with inclinations towards mysticism and esoteric religion.

这些地方对一些倾向信奉神秘主义和玄秘宗教的人而言尤为重要。

3. The remarkale thing about the Romans is that, depite their long occupation of Britain, they left very little behind. To many other parts of Europe they bequeathed a system of law and administration which forms the basis of the modern system and a language which developed into the modern Romance family of languages. In Britain, they left neither.

令人值得注意的是，虽然罗马人曾长期占领英国，但他们几乎没给后世留下什么影响。而对其他欧洲的（占领者）而言，他们在身后留了一套法律和管理体制，形成了现代法律和管理体系的基础，还形成了日后发展成为现代罗马语系的语言雏形。

4. The political independence of Scotland did not prevent a gradual switch to English language and customs in the lowland (southern) part of the country.

苏格兰在政治上的独立并没有阻止它南部的低地地区向英格兰的语言和风俗方面的转变。

5. It was in this period that Parliament began its gradual evolution into the democratic body which it is today. The word “parliament”, which comes from the French word parler, was first used in England in the thirteenth century to describe an assembly of nobles called together by the king.

就是在这个时期议会开始逐步演进成为今天民主机构的一部分。“议会”一词源语法语词“parler”，十三世纪首次在英格兰使用，指的是国王称呼的贵族群体。

6. Unlike in much of the rest of Europe, the immediate cause of the rise of Protestantism in England was political and personal rather than doctrinal.

不像欧洲大陆的其他地方，英格兰新教教会迅速崛起的原因并非出于教义，而是政治上和个人的原因致使的。

7. It was cultural change that was most marked in this century. Britain gradually acquired an empire in the Americas, along the west African coast and in India. The greatly increased trade that this allowed was one factor which led to the Industrial Revolution. Other factors were the many technicla innovations in manufacture and transport.

这个世纪最显而易见的就是文化变迁了。英国逐渐形成了一个包括美洲大陆、非洲西海岸和印度的帝国，由此而迅速增加的贸易是导致工业革命的原因之一，而另一个原因则是生产领域和交通业的技术创新。

8．The growth of the empire was encouraged by a change in attitude during the century. Previously, colonization had been a matter of settlement, commerce, or military strategy. The aim was simply to possess territory, but not necessarily to govern it. By the end of the centruy, colonization was seen as a matter of destiny.

一个世纪以来，观念上的变化促使帝国不断壮大。先前的殖民实质上是指定居、贸易往来或军事策略，目的仅仅是占据领地，并非必须对其实施统治。到了世纪末，殖民被视为是一种定数。

9. Middle-class religious conviction, together with a belief that reform was better than revolution, allowed reforms in public life. These included not only political reforms, but also reforms which recognized some human rights (as we now call them). Slavery and the laws against people on the basisi of religion were abolished, and laws were made to protect workers from some of the worst excesses of the industrial mode of production.

中产阶级的宗教信仰连同“改革胜于革命”的信条一起允许社会生活方面所发生的改革。这不仅包括政治方面的改革，还包括所认同的某些人权方面的改革（如我们现在所说的一样）。奴隶制和基于宗教角度考虑的有悖人民的法律得以废除，并且还制定了法律来保护工人们不至从事一些工业生产模式的超量额外工作。

10. The real dismantling of the empire took place in the 25 years following the Second World War. In the same period, it gradually became clear that Britain was no longer a “ superpower” in the world and its forces were no longer able to act unilaterally.

大英帝国的真正瓦解发生在二战后的25年间。在这一时期，逐渐清晰的是英国不再是世界上的“超级大国”，他的军事力量再也不能采取单边行动。