The way great books influenced human advancement

The way great books influenced human advancement

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Books, and the amount of people who could read them, have been absolutely crucial to human development over the centuries.

It can be difficult to picture what the world would be like today if the vast majority of individuals were not able to read, but for the vast majority of history the huge bulk of individuals could not, and nor were books accessible even if they could. It was the invention of the printing press towards the close of the 15th that altered that, making books far more available. Obviously, it was still only actually the wealthiest and well-educated that could read or write, but it made it possible for an entire host of advancements in science, art, and thinking to be spread throughout great distances. Consider what would have occurred if the theory of gravity, or of evolution, could not have been dispersed around the world. Human civilisation rests upon a foundation 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 easily gain access to the totality of human knowledge.

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 also. 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 a lot of the best modern books of all time tend to be regarded as ground-breaking works of fiction, for the majority of humanity'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 could not read, indicating that most books were specialised things meant for those few who might comprehend them. After a brief boom during the classical period of antiquity, the quantity of literate individuals dropped drastically throughout the Middle Ages. Books became rare treasures, with monks meticulously copying out the enduring timeless texts by hand so as to preserve them, as they were some of the only members of the population who were able to read or write. They were the specialist keepers of knowledge like biology and religious beliefs that all of us have access to in the modern-day world.