Ways in which people reading books expanded knowledge

Ways in which people reading books expanded knowledge

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The world today is built upon an almost incomprehensible amount of understanding that has actually been passed down in books.

It can be difficult to envision what the world would resemble today if the vast majority of people were not able to read, but for the large bulk of history the huge bulk of people could not, and nor were books accessible even if they could. It was the creation of the printing press towards the close of the 15th that altered that, making books far more available. Of course, it was still only really the richest and well-educated that could read or write, but it allowed an entire host of developments in science, art, and thinking to be spread out 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 foundation of books, and we are lucky to be able to simply log onto a website 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 knowledge.

It is essential to keep in mind that, although lots of the best modern books of all time tend to be considered ground-breaking works of fiction, for the majority of humankind's literary history, we did not write much fiction at all. A lot of stories would have been sung throughout the great majority of history, just since the huge majority of people could not read, implying that many books were specialised things meant for those few who might comprehend them. After a quick boom throughout the classical period of antiquity, the quantity of literate people dropped dramatically during the Middle Ages. Books became rare treasures, with monks meticulously copying out the surviving traditional texts by hand so as to protect them, as they were a few of the only members of the population who were able to read or write. They were the expert keepers of understanding like biology and faith that all of us have access to in the modern-day world.

With such an abundant history of concepts, occasions, and stories right at our fingertips, it's often simple 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 substantial percentage of all the books that have actually ever been composed (or the good ones at the very least). The best books of all time can easily change the way that you look at the world, and that has held true throughout all of history too. The modern-day world is built on 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 not been for the books that changed minds across the ages.