A conference at the University of Cambridge, in winter! I go for it.

Silent reading was uncommon until the end of the 18th century. So was literacy to a similar extent. Nevertheless, were illiterate people prevented from accessing books and manuscripts, novels and poems, letters and daily notes? On the contrary. An early form of sharing economy flourished throughout centuries.

200 years before the birth of the USA the American continent put a brake on the Islamic expansion in Europe.