Why the best books are greater than just stories

Why the best books are greater than just stories

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Books, and the quantity of people who could read them, have actually been definitely essential to human advancement over the centuries.

It can be difficult to imagine what the world would resemble today if the huge majority of people were unable to read, but for the large majority of history the huge bulk 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 altered that, making books a lot more accessible. Naturally, it was still just really the wealthiest and well-read that could read or write, but it made it possible for a whole host of breakthroughs in science, art, and thinking to be spread out across great distances. Consider what would have taken place if the theory of gravity, or of evolution, could not have actually been distributed around the world. Human civilisation rests upon a foundation 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 quickly access the totality of human understanding.

With such a rich history of ideas, occasions, and stories right at our fingertips, it's sometimes simple 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 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 alter the way that you take a look at the world, and that has actually been true throughout all of history too. The contemporary world is built on knowledge 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 throughout the ages.

It's important to keep in mind that, although plenty of the best modern books of all time tend to be considered ground-breaking works of fiction, for the majority of humankind's literary history, we did not compose much fiction at all. Most stories would have been sung throughout the great bulk of history, simply since the huge majority of individuals might not read, implying that the majority of books were specialised things meant for those few who could comprehend them. After a quick boom during the classical period of antiquity, the amount of literate individuals dropped considerably during the Middle Ages. Books ended up being uncommon treasures, with monks meticulously copying out the enduring classic texts by hand so as to protect them, as they were a few of the only members of the populace who could read or write. They were the professional keepers of knowledge like biology and religious beliefs that all of us have access to in the modern world.