Never before have books been so available as they are today in the modern-day world; keep reading to find out more.
It can be hard to envision what the world would be like today if the vast bulk of people were not able to read, but for the large majority of history the huge bulk of people might not, and nor were books accessible even if they could. It was the invention of the printing press towards the close of the 15th that altered that, making books a lot more accessible. Naturally, it was still only really the wealthiest and well-educated that could read or write, however it allowed a whole host of developments in science, art, and thinking to be spread throughout great distances. Consider what would have occurred if the theory of gravity, or of evolution, could not have been dispersed across the globe. Human civilisation rests upon a foundation of books, and we are fortunate to be able to simply log onto a site 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.
With such a rich history of concepts, events, 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 change the manner in which you look at the world, which has held true throughout all of history as well. The contemporary world is built upon understanding 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 bear 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. Many 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 understand them. After a quick boom during the classical age of antiquity, the quantity of literate individuals dropped drastically throughout the Middle Ages. Books became unusual treasures, with monks fastidiously copying out the surviving traditional texts by hand so as to maintain them, as they were some of the only members of the population who were able to read or write. They were the specialist keepers of knowledge like biology and faith that all of us have access to in the modern world.