Ways in which great books influenced human advancement

Ways in which great books influenced human advancement

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

It can be difficult to envision what the world would be like today if the large bulk of individuals were not able to read, but for the large bulk of history the huge majority of people might not, and nor were books available even if they could. It was the invention of the printing press towards the close of the 15th that changed that, making books far more available. Of course, it was still only truly the wealthiest and well-educated that could read or write, but it allowed an entire host of developments in science, art, and thinking to be spread across great distances. Consider what would have occurred if the theory of gravity, or of evolution, could not have actually been dispersed across the globe. Human civilisation rests upon a foundation 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 quickly access the totality of human knowledge.

It is essential to keep in mind that, although a lot of the best modern books of all time tend to be regarded as ground-breaking works of fiction, for most of humanity's literary history, we did not write much fiction at all. A lot of stories would have been sung throughout the great bulk of history, merely due to the fact that the vast majority of people could not read, implying that a lot of books were specialised things meant for those few who might comprehend them. After a quick boom throughout the classical period of antiquity, the amount of literate individuals 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 in some cases simple to forget how extremely 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.