Why the best books are greater than just stories

Why the best books are greater than just stories

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

It can be difficult to envision what the world would be like today if the vast bulk of individuals were not able to read, but for the large bulk of history the huge majority of people might not, and nor were books available even if they could. It was the innovation of the printing press towards the close of the 15th that changed that, making books far more accessible. Of course, it was still just actually the richest and well-educated that could read or write, but it made it possible for an entire 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 actually been distributed across the globe. Human civilisation rests upon a structure of books, and we are fortunate to be able to simply 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'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 write much fiction at all. Most stories would have been sung throughout the great majority of history, just since the huge bulk of individuals could not read, meaning that many books were specialised things meant for those few who could comprehend them. After a short boom throughout the classical period of antiquity, the quantity of literate people dropped dramatically 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 a few of the only members of the population who were able to read or write. They were the expert keepers of understanding like biology and faith that all of us have access to in the modern-day world.

With such an abundant history of concepts, occasions, and stories right at our fingertips, it's often simple 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 substantial percentage of all the books that have actually ever been composed (or the good ones at the very least). The best books of all time can quickly alter the manner in which you look at the world, and that has been true throughout all of history as well. The modern world is built upon understanding that has actually 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.