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The "American Century" has become the "American Crisis," and that happened in just twenty-five years.
“美国世纪”已经成为“美国危机”，而这仅在短短25年间发生了。
That's the theme of David Halberstam's latest book called The Reckoning.
这就是大卫·哈伯斯坦新书《思忖》的主题。
It's the story of the Ford Motor Company and the story of Nissan, a Japanese car maker since the late 1930s.
这本书讲以福特汽车公司为背景，讲述了日本车企尼桑自上世纪30年代以来的故事。
It is now a very successful importer to the US.
这本书现在在美国十分畅销。
Basically Halberstam believes the American automobile industry, Detroit since the Second World War, Became a shared defact monopoly
哈伯斯坦认为，美国的汽车行业自二战后就成了垄断行业，
failing to listen to Congress, failing to notice Japan, and mostly failing, he says,
不听国会的指挥，没有注意到日本的崛起，从而导致一蹶不振，他如是说道，
because the car companies came under the control of the financial people rather than the car people.
因为汽车公司都是由金融领域的人掌控的，而非专业搞汽车的人士。
David Halberstam talks with us now about one very important year in auto biz, 1964,
交谈中，大卫·哈伯斯坦提到了汽车行业非常重要的一年，即1964年，
and about several important people, beginning with Yutaca Catayama of Nissan.
他也提到了一些关键人士，比如尼桑公司的丰片山。
Catayama, who is a kind of exuberant, somewhat aristocratic man, was very frustrated.
丰片山总是容光焕发，很有贵族气质，但当时的他感到灰心丧气。
At home in Tokyo, there seemed to be no place for him in the company.
在他的家乡东京，似乎自己在公司也没有容身之地。
He loved making cars. He was on the wrong side politically, and that's a very political company.
他热爱制造汽车。但他在政治上站错了队，而他所在的公司却恰好是一家重视政治手腕的公司。
And so he was almost exiled to America on the assumption that selling cars in America would be a sure place:
他也因此差点被放逐到了每周，坐实的罪名是在美国卖车。
if you wanted someone to fail, that's what you would do. And he came here, and he loved America.
欲加之罪，何患无辞呢，所以他来到了美国，他很热爱这里。
I mean, he was more at home, oddly enough, in America than he was in Japan.
这里比起东京更有家的感觉，虽然听起来会很奇怪。
In the beginning he would almost, I mean, sell cars hand by hand.
一开始，他会亲自卖车。
He would go to the Japanese gardeners in Los Angeles and sell these little pick-up trucks and he found these,
他会去洛杉矶的日本园艺大师那里卖轻运货车。然后他结实了一些二手车经销商，
you know, almost used car dealers whom he convinced to be Nissan dealers, and he would hand ...
并说服这些经销商成为尼桑的经销商，然后再手把手教他们。
he'd drive the cars down to their lots, and he got to know the business, and just it began to surface in 64.
他会把车开到场地，逐渐了解业务，并在1964年崭露头角。
That's a very important demarcation point, 1964.
1964年是一个分界点。
You mention the pick-up trucks they were trying to sell on the west coast.
您提到他们想办法在西海岸卖轻运货车。
It is funny the correspondence back and forth between the west coast and Tokyo
有趣的是，虽然西海岸和东京之间一直有通讯的交互，
that the Japanese in Tokyo don't believe that Americans should be riding in pick-up trucks
但东京人认为，美国人不会骑轻运货车的，
as passenger vehicles and refuse to accommodate some design changes.
因为客车都拒绝在设计上做变动。
Well, factories in those days were not very technologically advanced.
当时的很多工厂技术都不够先进。
I mean, they have this wonderful work force, and they have this enormous ambition and this willingness as to pay a high price.
我是说，他们的劳动力和野心都很强大，也愿意出高价购买。
But their cars were very primitive really, like American cars in the 30s.
但他们的车其实很原始，就像美国30年代的车。
But the truck they were building was like a small tank and was very inexpensive, and they started selling on the west coast.
但他们建造的卡车就像小型坦克一样，价格非常低廉，就这样开始在西海岸出售了。
And for the first couple years, the little truck was what carried the company.
开始的几年里，这种轻运火车成了该公司的主打产品。
I mean that's where they made their inroads.
让他们能够打入市场。
And Catayama kept saying, You know, you don't under...to the home-office.
而丰片山总是跟总部强调“你们并不....”。
You don't understand Americans. They drive the truck, I mean, pick-up truck.
你们并不了解美国人，他们是开卡车的，就是轻运货车。
That's a car for them, I mean, they'll work in it, and they'll play in it;
对于他们来说，轻运货车就是汽车，他们可以在里面工作和娱乐。
they'll go to the bank in it; they'll go to a drive-in movie in it.
他们去银行也会开着这种车，去免下车电影院也是。
Can we put some air conditioner? Can we make it more comfortable? Can we put in a radio?'
我们能安个空调吗？能让环境更舒适些吗？能安个收音机吗？
And Tokyo kept saying, you know, No, no, no, no. It should not be used for those things.
而东京方面却一直表示，“不不不，轻型货车不应该这么用。”
We want the Americans just to drive it as a truck.
我们希望美国人把它当成货车来用。
You know Catayama just had a feeling that they were losing all these sales.
丰片山有一种感觉，他们的生意要搞砸了。
He mostly did not win the battle on the truck, but he won a lot other battles.
他在货车的战场上就从来没赢过，但他赢得了很多其他的胜利。
Talking about '64, just about the time the Japanese car workers had begun
说到1964年，那时候，很多日本汽车行业的工人
to be able to afford the Japanese car and much earlier in your book,
刚刚有点能力买车（或许时间在史书上记载得更早一些）。
writing about the original Henry Ford, you talk about the time that Ford decided to pay his employees five dollars a day,
史书里也会记载到亨利·福特，那时候，福特给工人们一天5美元的工资，
as been an incredibly revolutionary time in American labor history.
这是美国劳动史上不可思议的变革时期。
I think that he revolutionized the economy and the idea of the worker as the consumer.
我觉得他变革了当时的经济，将工人也视为消费者。
I mean if there is a thing called the American Century, it is also a thing called the Oil Century.
我觉得，如果“美国世纪”当真存在的话，它应该叫“石油世纪”更为准确。
The two are the same, and the coming of the first Henry Ford with the Model T at the very beginning of the century,
这两个时期是同一个时期，那是世纪之初，福特推出了T型发动机小汽车
at the very same time when you have these huge oil gushers down in the Southwest,
而与此同时，西南部油耗量大的车型，
its spindle top which supplies the inexpensive energy, you begin to get the oil culture.
销售量在不断减少，这种新车型的推出可以减少昂贵能源的消耗，这就是石油文化。
And then very quickly you have small gas engines, and you have items which are consumer items.
然后很快就又有了小型内燃机，有了商业化的版本。
What Henry Ford did was bring mass production and finally create a cycle in which,
而亨利·福特选择引入大规模生产，并创造了一个循环，
for the first time, in the industrial world, the worker was also a consumer.
让工人首次成为工业界的消费者。
And when he paid for the first time five dollars a day,
而当他每天支付5美元的时候，
everybody else in the industrial sector jumped on his back, you know ,and said, he was ruining us.
工业界的每个人都会批评他，说他毁了大家。
This would, you know cause all kinds of social chaos, that workers couldn't handle that much money.
这就会引发各种社会动乱，因为工人不知道该怎么处理这样的巨款。
But he was very skillfully creating this cycle, and he knew that he could build this many cars,
他很有技巧，能创造这样一个循环，他也知道自己能造出这么多的车，
but there's no sense in building them if people couldn't buy them. And the worker became the consumer.
但如果没有人买的话，造再多也没意义，于是工人也变成了消费者。
Let me ask you for an explanation of this man. His name is Kadsundo Kohamu.
我想听您介绍一下这个人。他就是威廉。
That is a Japanese name given ....taken by an American.
威廉其实是英语里的叫法，但他的本名是日本的名字。
Yes, his name...well, that means Willian the Conqueror, I believe, in rough translation.
没错，他名字的意思是征服者威廉，这是人们根据大意翻译的。
His real name, he was born, I suppose, well, in the other century, is a man named William Reagan Gorham.
他的真名，鉴于他并非生在日本，叫做威廉·里根·戈勒姆。
And he was a wonderful tinkerer that the kind that we were producing in the very beginning of the twentieth century,
他很喜欢研究各种小玩意，尤其是我们20世纪之初生产的那些小玩意，
men who just loved this moment of explosion of machinery.
他喜欢新出现的各类机器。
He was like a Henry Ford, who came along a few years after Ford.
他就像另一个福特，只是比福特晚生了几年。
In fact, the original Henry Ford was his God.
实际上，亨利·福特是他的偶像。
And he was trying to... and he invented everything; he could do almost everything.
是他效仿的榜样，他发明了很多东西，他在威廉的眼中是无所不能的。
And frustrated in America, because there seemed to be no place for him, he went over to Japan to ...
在美国受挫之后，他觉得自己没有容身之地了，就来到了日本，
originally to design airplanes during World War I.
那时候正值一战，他的工作是设计飞机。
Loved it there. Became kind of a, a sort of industrial or mechanical missionary there.
他很喜欢那里的生活，成了那里机械工业界数一数二的人物。
And he would invent motorized little vehicles.
他会设计出机械化的小车型。
He invented the diesel engines, airplanes, and finally, he really was, in all respects, the inventor of the first Datsun car.
他发明了柴油机、飞机，还发明了第一辆日产Datsun车。
I mean, the intriguing thing that this American,
我觉得有趣的是：
because the Japanese are so good at absorbing other people's knowledge, he invented the first Datsun.
本来日本人向来擅长吸取其他文化之精髓的，但却是一个美国人发明了第一辆日产Datsun车。
He came to love Japan. I mean, for him, it was a country loved many of the values,
他对日本的爱是逐渐加深的，他认同日本的很多价值观、
systems of the respect for work, the cleanliness, whatever the country.
日本人对工作的尊重、日本人的爱干净，一切的一切。
And he was honored there. He was never interested in making very much money.
他在日本备受尊崇，但他从不痴迷于赚钱。
As World War II began to approach, he became very melancholy, because he saw his adopted country and his native country about to go to war.
随着二战的来临，他开始变得郁郁寡欢，因为他看到自己的第一故乡和第二故乡要走上战场了。
He argued, without very much success, on both sides to... in ways that would sort of cut off the growing confrontation.
他曾向双方声嘶力竭地呐喊过，但却毫无成效，虽然他的方式是可以缓解对峙情况的。
And on the very eve, he took up Japanese citizenship, this name and told his then colleague sons to go back to America before it was too late.
就在开战的前一页，他以日本市民的身份，用自己的日本的名字告诉自己同事的孩子们，回到美国去，不要酿成大错。
And he is buried there. It is an extraordinary life.
他的尸骨也埋在了那里，他的一生是如此传奇。
David Halberstam. His book is called The Reckoning.
大卫·哈伯斯坦，他的著作名叫《思忖》。
