How individuals reading books spread understanding

How individuals reading books spread understanding

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The world today is built upon a nearly incomprehensible amount of knowledge that has been passed down in books.

With such an abundant history of concepts, occasions, and stories right at our fingertips, it's often simple to forget how extremely 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 percentage of all the books that have ever been written (or the good ones at the very least). The best books of all time can quickly alter the way that you look at the world, which has actually been true throughout all of history as well. The modern world is built on 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 actually not been for the books that changed minds across the ages.

It is essential to remember 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 compose much fiction at all. The majority of stories would have been sung throughout the great majority of history, simply due to the fact that the large majority of individuals could not read, implying that most books were specialised things meant for those few who might understand them. After a quick boom throughout the classical era of antiquity, the quantity of literate individuals dropped dramatically throughout the Middle Ages. Books became uncommon treasures, with monks meticulously copying out the surviving timeless 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 expert keepers of knowledge like biology and faith that we all have access to in the modern-day world.

It can be hard to envision what the world would be like today if the huge majority of individuals were not able to read, but for the huge majority of history the large 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 changed that, making books far more accessible. Naturally, it was still only actually the richest and well-read that could read or write, however it allowed an entire host of breakthroughs in science, art, and thinking to be spread out throughout great distances. Consider what would have occurred 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 just 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 gain access to the totality of human understanding.