The way individuals reading books dispersed understanding

The way individuals reading books dispersed understanding

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Our ability to gain access to and read books has actually been absolutely important to our capability to comprehend the world around us.

It can be tough to picture what the world would be like today if the vast bulk of people were not able to read, but for the large majority of history the vast bulk of people might 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 richest 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 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 structure of books, and we are lucky to be able to merely 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 an abundant history of ideas, events, and stories right at our fingertips, it's often 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 huge percentage of all the books that have ever been composed (or the good ones at least). The best books of all time can quickly change the manner in which you look at the world, which has held true throughout all of history as well. 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 the majority 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, merely because the large bulk of people might not read, meaning that a lot of books were specialised things meant for those few who might understand them. After a quick boom during the classical age of antiquity, the quantity of literate individuals dropped drastically during the Middle Ages. Books became uncommon treasures, with monks painstakingly copying out the enduring timeless texts by hand so as to preserve them, as they were a few of the only members of the population who could read or write. They were the expert keepers of understanding like biology and religion that we all have access to in the contemporary world.