The key reasons why people having books to read constructed the modern world

The key reasons why people having books to read constructed the modern world

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Books, and the amount of people who might read them, have actually been absolutely crucial to human advancement over the centuries.

It can be difficult to imagine what the world would resemble today if the large bulk of individuals were not able to read, but for the huge majority of history the vast bulk of individuals could not, and nor were books available even if they could. It was the innovation of the printing press towards the close of the 15th that changed that, making books far more accessible. Of course, it was still just truly the wealthiest and well-read that could read or write, but it made it possible for a whole host of breakthroughs in science, art, and thinking to be spread out across great distances. Consider what would have happened if the theory of gravity, or of evolution, could not have actually been distributed around the world. Human civilisation rests upon a foundation of books, and we are fortunate 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 easily gain access to the totality of human understanding.

With such a rich history of concepts, occasions, 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 huge percentage of all the books that have ever been written (or the good ones at the very least). The best books of all time can easily alter the way that you look at the world, which has held true throughout all of history as well. The contemporary world is built on knowledge that has actually been handed 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 across the ages.

It is very important to remember that, although lots of the best modern books of all time tend to be considered as ground-breaking works of fiction, for most of humankind's literary history, we did not compose much fiction at all. Many stories would have been sung throughout the great bulk of history, merely because the large majority of individuals might not read, meaning that a lot of books were specialised things meant for those few who might understand them. After a quick boom throughout the classical era of antiquity, the amount of literate people dropped dramatically during the Middle Ages. Books ended up being uncommon treasures, with monks painstakingly copying out the surviving timeless texts by hand so as to preserve them, as they were some of the only members of the populace who were able to read or write. They were the professional keepers of understanding like biology and religion that we all have access to in the contemporary world.