A级: The diffusion of knowledge is the dominant trend of our time. What was happening in Britain duringthe Industrial Revolution was not an isolated phenomenon. A succession of visitors to Britain would go backto their countries to report on the technological innovations they saw there. Sometimes societies were able tolearn extremely fast, as in the United States. Others, like Italy, benefited from starting late, leapfrogging thelong-drawn-out process that Britain went through. This diffusion of knowledge accelerated dramatically in recent years. Over the last 30 years we havewatched countries like Japan, Singapore and now China grow at a pace that is four times that of Britain at tilepeak of the Industrial Revolution. They have been able to do this because of their energies, of course, butalso because they cleverly adopted certain ideas about development that had worked in the Westrelatively free markets, open trade, a focus on science and technology, among them. And this shift ishappening all around the world. From Thailand to South Africa, from Brazil to Mexico, countries are farbetter managed economically than they have ever been. We are sometimes reluctant to believe in progress. But the evidence is unmistakable. The managementof major economies has changed greatly in the last few years. Careful monetary policy has tempered theboom-and-bust economic cycles of the industrial world, producing milder recessions and fewer shocks.Every day one reads of a new study compm-ing nations in everything from Intemet penelration to interestrates. All these studies and lists are symbols of a learning process that is accelerating, reinforcing the lessonsof success and failure.