Ways in which people reading books proliferated knowledge

Ways in which people reading books proliferated knowledge

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

It can be hard to picture what the world would resemble today if the huge majority of people were unable to read, but for the huge majority of history the vast bulk of individuals might not, and nor were books accessible even if they could. It was the innovation of the printing press towards the close of the 15th that altered that, making books far more accessible. Obviously, it was still just actually 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 around the world. 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 gain access to the totality of human knowledge.

It is very important to bear 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 humankind'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 many books were specialised things meant for those few who might comprehend them. After a short boom throughout the classical period of antiquity, the quantity of literate people dropped considerably throughout the Middle Ages. Books became rare treasures, with monks painstakingly copying out the surviving classic texts by hand so as to preserve them, as they were some of the only members of the populace who could read or write. They were the specialist keepers of knowledge like biology and religion that we all have access to in the modern world.

With such a rich history of ideas, events, and stories right at our fingertips, it's sometimes easy to forget how incredibly 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 huge proportion of all the books that have ever been composed (or the good ones at the very least). The best books of all time can quickly alter the manner in which you take a look at the world, and that has been true throughout all of history as well. The modern world is built upon understanding that has actually been handed 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.