Before 1955, most white people were just shadowy presences in our world, vague figures of power like remote bosses at the mill or clerks at the bank.

1955年以前，大多数白人在我们的世界里只是影子般的存在，就像工厂里高高在上的老板或银行职员那样的模糊的权力人物。

youdao

The vice-president took power in the interim period before the election.

在大选之前的过渡阶段由副总统执政。

《牛津词典》

In 2012, however, the hull shape was at the centre of the work, so modern power tools were used to carve the oak planks, before turning to prehistoric tools for finishing.

然而，在2012年，船体形状是这项工作的中心，所以现代电动工具被用来雕刻橡树木板，然后再用史前工具进行修整。

youdao

The princess had more power, influence and force of character than anyone who had ever before been interested in such a case.

VOA: special.2009.04.18

I think of it as a kind of reply to that famous question in "Leda and the Swan"; that is, "did she put on his knowledge with his power before the indifferent beak could let her drop?"

这是对丽达和天鹅中那个,著名问题的回答，在那冷漠的嘴把她放下之前,她是否用她的力量获取了他的知识？

耶鲁公开课 - 现代诗歌课程节选

Satan's saying that before the war in heaven, God's power just seemed like any other king's power, as if God sat on the throne of heaven merely because of those humanly constructed reasons of tradition, or of old repute or consent or custom.

撒旦是说在这场天上的大战之前，上帝的力量就和其他国王的力量一样，他坐在天堂的宝座上似乎仅仅是因为,人们自己营造的原因和传统，或者说是他过期的声望，他制定的法规以及约定俗成的规矩。

耶鲁公开课 - 弥尔顿课程节选

Mr Okada thus faces a different challenge: convincing voters that his party can carry out the changes they are promising, when they have never been in power before.

ECONOMIST: Japan

This week has gone from bad to worse for Musharraf, who seized power in a coup in 1999 when he was serving as army chief and spent nearly a decade in power before being forced to step down in 2008.

NPR: Pakistan's Musharraf On The Run After Arrest Order

Even if voters understood what nominal GDP was - as they currently don't - will they really ever believe that a government is going to withstand years of well above, or well below, target inflation, simply to get back to a particular, fairly arbitrary path for the cash value of the economy that was laid down by the folk who were in power before them?

BBC: The Bank of England, the chancellor, and the target