Exactly why the best books are more than simply stories

Exactly why the best books are more than simply stories

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Our capability to gain access to and read books has actually been definitely crucial to our capability to comprehend the world around us.

It can be hard to imagine what the world would be like today if the vast majority of people were not able to read, but for the vast bulk of history the huge bulk of individuals might not, and nor were books available even if they could. It was the creation of the printing press towards the close of the 15th that altered that, making books a lot more available. Obviously, it was still only really the richest and well-educated that could read or write, however it made it possible for an entire host of developments in science, art, and thinking to be spread out across great distances. Consider what would have occurred if the theory of gravity, or of evolution, could not have been distributed across the globe. Human civilisation rests upon a structure of books, and we are fortunate to be able to just 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 understanding.

It is necessary to bear in mind that, although lots of the best modern books of all time tend to be considered ground-breaking works of fiction, for most of mankind's literary history, we did not compose much fiction at all. Many stories would have been sung throughout the great majority of history, merely due to the fact that the large majority of individuals might not read, implying that most books were specialised things meant for those few who might comprehend them. After a brief boom throughout the classical age of antiquity, the amount of literate people dropped drastically during the Middle Ages. Books ended up being unusual treasures, with monks painstakingly copying out the enduring traditional texts by hand so as to preserve them, as they were a few of the only members of the population who could read or write. They were the professional keepers of knowledge like biology and religion that all of us have access to in the contemporary world.

With such an abundant history of ideas, events, and stories right at our fingertips, it's often easy to forget how incredibly 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 big 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 easily alter the way that you take a look at the world, and that has actually 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 not been for the books that changed minds throughout the ages.