Ways in which great books influenced human development

Ways in which great books influenced human development

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Our ability to gain access to and read books has actually been absolutely crucial to our capability to understand the world around us.

It can be hard to envision what the world would be like today if the vast bulk of people were not able to read, but for the huge majority of history the huge bulk of people might 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 a lot more accessible. Naturally, it was still just really the wealthiest and well-educated that could read or write, however it allowed a whole host of developments 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 across the globe. Human civilisation rests upon a structure of books, and we are fortunate to be able to simply 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 knowledge.

With such an abundant history of ideas, occasions, and stories right at our fingertips, it's in some cases easy 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 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 been true throughout all of history as well. The contemporary world is built upon understanding 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 across the ages.

It is very important to remember that, although lots of the best modern books of all time tend to be regarded as ground-breaking works of fiction, for the majority of mankind'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 might not read, meaning that a lot of books were specialised things meant for those few who might understand them. After a quick boom during the classical age of antiquity, the quantity of literate individuals dropped drastically throughout the Middle Ages. Books became unusual treasures, with monks fastidiously copying out the surviving timeless texts by hand so as to preserve them, as they were some of the only members of the population who could read or write. They were the specialist keepers of understanding like biology and faith that we all have access to in the contemporary world.