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

It can be tough to picture what the world would be like today if the huge bulk of people were unable to read, but for the large majority of history the huge majority of individuals might not, and nor were books accessible even if they could. It was the development of the printing press towards the close of the 15th that altered that, making books much more available. Obviously, it was still only actually the richest and well-read that could read or write, however it enabled an entire host of advancements 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 around the world. Human civilisation rests upon a foundation 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 access the totality of human understanding.

With such a rich history of concepts, events, and stories right at our fingertips, it's often easy to forget how exceptionally 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 substantial proportion of all the books that have actually ever been written (or the good ones at the very least). The best books of all time can easily alter the way that you take a look at the world, and that has held true throughout all of history also. The modern-day world is built upon understanding that has 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 regarded as ground-breaking works of fiction, for most of mankind'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 due to the fact that the large bulk of people could not read, suggesting that many books were specialised things meant for those few who might understand them. After a short boom throughout the classical era of antiquity, the quantity of literate people dropped dramatically throughout the Middle Ages. Books ended up being rare treasures, with monks meticulously copying out the enduring classic texts by hand so as to protect them, as they were a few of the only members of the populace who were able to read or write. They were the professional keepers of knowledge like biology and religious beliefs that all of us have access to in the modern world.