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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The world today is built on a practically incomprehensible quantity of knowledge that has been handed down in books.

With such an abundant history of concepts, events, and stories right at our fingertips, it's sometimes easy to forget how exceptionally 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 ever been composed (or the good ones at the very least). The best books of all time can easily change the manner in which you take a look at the world, and that has held true throughout all of history too. The contemporary world is built upon understanding that has actually 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.

It can be difficult to imagine what the world would resemble today if the large majority of individuals were unable to read, but for the vast majority of history the huge majority of people might 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 altered that, making books a lot more accessible. Naturally, it was still just really the wealthiest and well-read that could read or write, but it made it possible for an entire host of breakthroughs in science, art, and thinking to be spread out throughout great distances. Consider what would have happened if the theory of gravity, or of evolution, could not have actually been distributed across the globe. Human civilisation rests upon a structure of books, and we are lucky to be able to merely 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 access the totality of human understanding.

It is very important to remember that, although a lot of the best modern books of all time tend to be considered ground-breaking works of fiction, for most of mankind's literary history, we did not write much fiction at all. The majority of stories would have been sung throughout the great majority of history, simply since the vast bulk of people might not read, implying that the majority of books were specialised things meant for those few who might understand them. After a short boom during the classical age of antiquity, the amount of literate people dropped dramatically throughout the Middle Ages. Books became uncommon treasures, with monks painstakingly copying out the enduring classic texts by hand so as to maintain them, as they were some of the only members of the population who could read or write. They were the expert keepers of knowledge like biology and religious beliefs that we all have access to in the contemporary world.