How great books affected human development

How great books affected human development

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

It is necessary to keep in mind that, although lots 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. A lot of stories would have been sung throughout the great majority of history, merely since the huge 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 during the classical period of antiquity, the quantity of literate individuals dropped dramatically throughout the Middle Ages. Books became rare treasures, with monks fastidiously copying out the enduring classic texts by hand so as to maintain them, as they were some of the only members of the population who were able to read or write. They were the expert keepers of knowledge like biology and religion that all of us have access to in the contemporary world.

With such a rich history of ideas, occasions, and stories right at our fingertips, it's in some cases 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 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 change the way that you look at the world, which has held true throughout all of history too. The contemporary world is built upon knowledge that has actually 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 not been for the books that changed minds throughout the ages.

It can be difficult to picture what the world would be like today if the huge majority of individuals were unable to read, but for the vast bulk of history the large bulk of people 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 much more accessible. Naturally, it was still only actually the richest and well-read that could read or write, but it made it possible for a whole host of advancements in science, art, and thinking to be spread across great distances. Consider what would have happened if the theory of gravity, or of evolution, could not have actually been dispersed across the globe. Human civilisation rests upon a structure of books, and we are lucky to be able to merely 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 access the totality of human understanding.