Ways in which great books influenced human advancement

Ways in which great books influenced human advancement

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The world today is built on an almost incomprehensible quantity of understanding that has been handed down in books.

With such a rich 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 substantial proportion of all the books that have ever been written (or the good ones at least). The best books of all time can quickly alter the manner in which you look at the world, and that has held true throughout all of history too. The modern-day world is built upon knowledge that has been passed 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 throughout the ages.

It's important to remember that, although lots of the best modern books of all time tend to be considered ground-breaking works of fiction, for the majority of mankind's literary history, we did not compose much fiction at all. Most stories would have been sung throughout the great majority of history, simply since the large majority of individuals might not read, indicating that the majority of books were specialised things meant for those few who might comprehend them. After a quick boom during the classical era of antiquity, the amount of literate individuals dropped significantly during the Middle Ages. Books became rare treasures, with monks meticulously copying out the surviving traditional 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.

It can be difficult to picture what the world would be like today if the vast majority of people were not able to read, but for the vast majority 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 accessible. 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 access the totality of human understanding.