Agents of Change: Why Books Matter

1721 Words7 Pages
The Oxford English Dictionary succinctly defines a book as “A written or printed treatise or series of treatises, occupying several sheets of paper or other substance fastened together so as to compose a material whole.” That definition lacks nothing in technical correctness, but as far as describing the entirety of what the concept of books has meant to humanity as a whole, it is woefully deficient. Human beings as a species have produced no greater aid to our own intellectual growth in the past however many millennia that we have been here than the invention of books. Books are so much more than just the paper and ink that they are composed of. They are the physical manifestation of all of humanity’s collected knowledge and wisdom, as well as its’ failings and distortions, admittedly. To me personally, a book is an agent of change. First, books are agents of personal change for the people who read them. They are also agents of social and cultural change to the world around us. Books both connect us with the past and show us the way to the future, and we neglect them at our own peril. Books have played a large role in my life. I read them, collect them, and obsess over them. I find a good book impossible to part with. My dream house would include a floor to ceiling library in every room. Alas, my wife would probably wallpaper over them. I say that books are the best agents of individual personal change because they require active participation from the reader. Reading a book is not a passive activity such as watching television or surfing the internet can so often become. To read a book one has to devote their entire attention to it, and engage it in an active back and forth discussion, or else it will prove a futile and fruitless activity. For this reason it takes longer to read a book, even a short book, than it does to watch a movie, and therefore more

More about Agents of Change: Why Books Matter

Open Document