This is not true at all. The empirical evidence shows the exact opposite: Americans tend to read far more than almost all other countries.
This "we Americans are a bunch of ignorant louts who don't read" narrative is a distressingly persistent misconception illustrating self-hating biases popular with certain segments of Americans. Fortunately, it is entirely false.
What does the data say?
* According to the chart on page 14 of [4], the US is ranked about #8 or #9 in the world (of 200+ countries) in terms of "books published per capita."
* The US "title production per capita," or "books published per 1 million inhabitants," is about 1,000 -- not the very highest in the entire world, but pretty high.[3]
* Over 25% of all books sold in the entire world are sold in the United States, which has about 4% of the world's population. [1]
* More books are published in the US than in any other country but China, which has about 4x the population of the US. [1][2]
* In 2016, the US was by far the largest book publishing market in the world by market value, larger even than China. [4]
This is not true at all. The empirical evidence shows the exact opposite: Americans tend to read far more than almost all other countries.
This "we Americans are a bunch of ignorant louts who don't read" narrative is a distressingly persistent misconception illustrating self-hating biases popular with certain segments of Americans. Fortunately, it is entirely false.
What does the data say?
* According to the chart on page 14 of [4], the US is ranked about #8 or #9 in the world (of 200+ countries) in terms of "books published per capita."
* The US "title production per capita," or "books published per 1 million inhabitants," is about 1,000 -- not the very highest in the entire world, but pretty high.[3]
* Over 25% of all books sold in the entire world are sold in the United States, which has about 4% of the world's population. [1]
* More books are published in the US than in any other country but China, which has about 4x the population of the US. [1][2]
* In 2016, the US was by far the largest book publishing market in the world by market value, larger even than China. [4]
[1] https://wordsrated.com/global-book-sales-statistics/
[2] https://www.statista.com/chart/12358/which-countries-produce...
[3] https://internationalpublishers.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/... , page 17.
[4] https://masterenedicion.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/BookM...