Reasons why the best books are more than simply stories

Reasons why the best books are more than simply stories

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

It can be hard to picture what the world would resemble today if the vast majority of individuals were unable to read, but for the vast majority of history the large bulk of people could not, and nor were books accessible even if they could. It was the creation of the printing press towards the close of the 15th that altered that, making books much more accessible. Naturally, it was still just really the richest and well-educated that could read or write, however it made it possible for a whole host of breakthroughs in science, art, and thinking to be spread throughout great distances. Consider what would have taken place 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 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 access the totality of human knowledge.

It is very important to bear in mind that, although plenty 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 compose 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 a lot of books were specialised things meant for those few who might comprehend them. After a quick boom throughout the classical period of antiquity, the quantity of literate people dropped dramatically during the Middle Ages. Books became rare treasures, with monks painstakingly copying out the surviving classic texts by hand so as to protect them, as they were some of the only members of the populace who could read or write. They were the expert keepers of knowledge like biology and religious beliefs that we all have access to in the contemporary world.

With such a rich history of ideas, events, 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 big proportion of all the books that have ever been written (or the good ones at least). The best books of all time can easily alter the manner in which you take a look at the world, which has actually been true throughout all of history also. The contemporary world is built upon knowledge that has 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 throughout the ages.