Never ever before have actually books been so available as they are today in the modern world; keep reading to discover more.
It can be tough to picture what the world would resemble today if the large bulk of people were unable to read, but for the large bulk of history the large bulk of people might not, and nor were books accessible even if they could. It was the development of the printing press towards the close of the 15th that changed that, making books far more accessible. Naturally, it was still only actually the richest and well-read that could read or write, but it allowed an entire host of advancements 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 around the world. Human civilisation rests upon a foundation 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 quickly access the totality of human knowledge.
With such an abundant history of ideas, events, and stories right at our fingertips, it's often simple to forget how extremely 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 quickly change the way that you take a look at the world, which has actually been true throughout all of history also. The modern-day world is built on 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 across the ages.
It is essential to bear in mind that, although a lot 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. The majority of stories would have been sung throughout the great bulk of history, simply because the large majority of individuals might not read, suggesting that the majority of books were specialised things meant for those few who could understand them. After a brief boom during the classical era of antiquity, the amount of literate individuals dropped drastically throughout the Middle Ages. Books ended up being uncommon treasures, with monks fastidiously copying out the enduring timeless texts by hand so as to maintain them, as they were a few of the only members of the population who were able to read or write. They were the professional keepers of understanding like biology and faith that all of us have access to in the modern-day world.