How Books and Reading Changes the world - Essay Example

2 June, How books and reading change the world: Literature has always been the fundamental source of knowledge for people. Books compile the literature and accordingly, become the basic source of knowledge. Several other things like magazines, movies and documentaries are also made upon subjects that may greatly add to the knowledge of an individual, though they have never been as diverse in their subjects as books have been. Hundreds of thousands of books have been written since the time man formed and made use of the symbols for conveying particular meanings to others, and every book greatly differs from other in content, theme and style.

A History Book is certainly the most appealing thing for an individual who wants to know about world’s history. If he/she wants to know the history of a specific region, like America, he/she would most likely find hundreds of books addressing this subject on the shelves in the book stores in market. Likewise, books on politics can be purchased from the market to learn about it. The sad part of the story is that many authors tend to project their beliefs in their books. Authors consider books as their territory in which they can do anything they like, without realizing that it would cause a great change in the society.

In fact, many authors do know that what they are conveying to the readers will become ingrained in their perceptions, and hence their beliefs will be fostered in the society in general. In the books, authors make arguments and support them with facts. What is important to note here is that authors are very choosy in their selection of facts. They only choose facts that project their beliefs and overlook others that contradict their views. Readers, on the other hand are generally unaware of this and are receptive towards the biased arguments on the authors.

Therefore, in order to gain the true understanding of a subject, it is imperative that a reader reads a lot of books about the subject, preferably those that are known to contradict one another. Having read a whole range of books, a reader should tend to recapitulate all important events and analyze their interrelationship. This would help a reader to develop his/her own viewpoint with a good knowledge of history, without any influence of one or more authors. A lot of people have started to think of religiosity as fundamentalism.

People who practice religion are called as fanatics. Much of this can be attributed to books that have shaped the mentality of a modern man in such a way that he/she tends to move away from religion in the name of liberalism. Books have also served to divide the society into classes depending upon the differences of financial status, race, or culture. In order to achieve their purpose, authors have not directly criticized religiosity in words as it was obvious to them that it would only incur them criticism and would do nothing to inculcate their viewpoint in the minds of the readers.

Instead, the message has been conveyed through images and strategic plots. This is how books have influenced the society.