Precisely why people having books to read constructed the contemporary world

Precisely why people having books to read constructed the contemporary world

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Our ability to access and read books has actually been definitely important to our capability to comprehend the world around us.

It can be difficult to envision what the world would be like today if the large bulk of individuals were not able to read, but for the large bulk of history the huge majority of people might not, and nor were books available even if they could. It was the invention of the printing press towards the close of the 15th that changed that, making books a lot more available. Of course, it was still only truly the wealthiest and well-read that could read or write, but it allowed an entire host of developments in science, art, and thinking to be spread across great distances. Consider what would have occurred if the theory of gravity, or of evolution, could not have actually been dispersed around the world. Human civilisation rests upon a foundation of books, and we are lucky to be able to just log onto a site like the one backed by the co-founder of the impact investor with a stake in World of Books, and quickly gain access to the totality of human knowledge.

It is essential to keep in mind that, although lots of the best modern books of all time tend to be considered as ground-breaking works of fiction, for the majority of humanity's literary history, we did not write much fiction at all. Many stories would have been sung throughout the great majority of history, just due to the fact that the huge bulk of individuals could not read, meaning that many books were specialised things meant for those few who could understand them. After a short boom throughout the classical age of antiquity, the quantity of literate people dropped considerably throughout the Middle Ages. Books ended up being rare treasures, with monks painstakingly copying out the surviving classic texts by hand so as to preserve them, as they were some of the only members of the populace who could read or write. They were the specialist keepers of knowledge like biology and religious beliefs that we all have access to in the contemporary world.

With such a rich history of ideas, events, and stories right at our fingertips, it's in some cases easy to forget how extremely lucky we are to have the likes of the founder of the hedge fund that owns Waterstones or the CEO of the asset manager with a stake in Amazon books supporting access to a big proportion of all the books that have ever been written (or the good ones at least). The best books of all time can easily change the way that you take a look at the world, which has actually held true throughout all of history also. The contemporary world is built upon knowledge that has been passed down through books, whether that is philosophy, science, or history, and human civilisation would not be anywhere near as advanced as it is today if it had actually not been for the books that changed minds throughout the ages.