Precisely why people having books to read constructed the modern world

Precisely why people having books to read constructed the modern world

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Our capability to access and read books has been definitely essential to our ability to understand the world around us.

It is very important to bear in mind that, although a lot 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. Most stories would have been sung throughout the great majority of history, simply because the vast majority of people could not read, meaning that most books were specialised things meant for those few who could understand them. After a brief boom during the classical era of antiquity, the amount of literate people dropped considerably throughout the Middle Ages. Books ended up being uncommon treasures, with monks fastidiously copying out the enduring timeless texts by hand so as to maintain them, as they were a few of the only members of the population who could read or write. They were the expert keepers of knowledge like biology and religion that we all have access to in the modern world.

It can be tough to envision what the world would resemble today if the large bulk of people were not able to read, but for the vast bulk of history the huge bulk of individuals could not, and nor were books accessible even if they could. It was the invention of the printing press towards the close of the 15th that changed that, making books far more available. Obviously, it was still only really the richest and well-read that could read or write, however it allowed a whole host of breakthroughs in science, art, and thinking to be spread throughout great distances. Consider what would have taken place if the theory of gravity, or of evolution, could not have been distributed across the globe. Human civilisation rests upon a structure of books, and we are fortunate to be able to just log onto a website 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 understanding.

With such a rich history of ideas, occasions, and stories right at our fingertips, it's in some cases easy to forget how incredibly fortunate 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 actually ever been composed (or the good ones at least). The best books of all time can quickly alter the way that you look at the world, which has been true throughout all of history too. The contemporary world is built upon understanding that has been passed down through books, whether that is ideology, science, or history, and human civilisation would not be anywhere near as advanced as it is today if it had not been for the books that changed minds across the ages.