Bill Gates described this as: “One of the most important books I’ve ever read – an indispensable guide to thinking clearly about the world.”
Author, Hans Rosling, was born in Sweden in 1948; he studied statistics and medicine at Uppsala University and public health at St. John’s Medical College, Bangalore, India. His book, Factfulness, details ten reasons why we’re wrong about the world and that things are better than you think.
In this information age, you’d think that most of us would have a pretty good grasp of simple questions concerning global trends. Knowledge about poverty levels, education and health across the world are surely commonplace?
Yet what Rosling found when he asked 13 questions on these subjects to diverse groups of people from industry leaders, politicians and academics to ordinary people and students, the level of accurate knowledge was worse than poor. The results were so bad, in fact, that chimpanzees (he actually went to a zoo and tested this) scored better than 80% of people!
The book goes on to explain why this happens. It reveals ten ‘instincts’ we use that distort our perspective, from our tendency to divide the world into ‘them’ (third world countries) and ‘us’ (the Western world) to the way our media reports news and how we consume it.
Essentially, it leads to us perceiving that most things in the world are getting worse. As Rosling says, however, “When we have a fact-based worldview, we can see that the world is not as bad as it seems—and we can see what we have to do to keep making it better.”
This is an inspiring book that will change the way you see the world and empower you to respond positively to the challenges and opportunities of the future.
Put it on your Christmas list now…