Never before have actually books been so available as they are today in the modern world; keep reading to find out more.
It can be hard to envision what the world would be like today if the huge bulk 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 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 out across great distances. Consider what would have taken place 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 gain access to the totality of human knowledge.
With such an abundant history of ideas, occasions, and stories right at our fingertips, it's in some cases 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 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 actually been true throughout all of history too. The modern 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 across the ages.
It is necessary to keep in mind that, although plenty of the best modern books of all time tend to be considered as ground-breaking works of fiction, for most of humankind's literary history, we did not write much fiction at all. A lot of stories would have been sung throughout the great bulk of history, just due to the fact that the large bulk of people might not read, meaning that a lot 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 painstakingly copying out the enduring timeless texts by hand so as to preserve them, as they were a few of the only members of the population who could read or write. They were the expert keepers of understanding like biology and religion that we all have access to in the modern-day world.