Factfulness by Hans Rosling

Author : Hans Rosling
Title : Factfulness
Published : 2018
Publisher : Sceptre
Pages : 352
Genre : Nonfiction

     When asked simple questions about global trends - why the world's population is increasing; how many young women go to school; how many of us live in poverty - we systematically get the answers wrong. So wrong that a chimpanzee choosing answers at random will consistently outguess journalists, Nobel laureates, and investment bankers. In Factfulness, Professor of International Health Hans Rosling - together with his two long-time collaborators Anna and Ola - offers a radically new explanation of why this happens, and reveals the ten instincts that distort our perspective. It turns out that the world, for all its imperfections, is in a much better state than we might think. But when we worry about everything all the time instead of embracing a worldview based on facts, we can lose our ability to focus on the things that threaten us most.

     More reticently I have got back into reading nonfiction book, my thirst for reading about the world we live in has grown greatly. So it was with this in mind I came to behold a copy of Factfulness in my hands. I'm just as guilty as everyone else for believing the world is in much worse shape than it probably is. It is something that is hard to overcome. Whenever you turn on the telly or open a newspaper it always seems to be doom and gloom. We repeatedly told that our planet is dying, being burnt up by global warming and an ever-increasing population.  the world is being destroyed and it's all our own fault. But for Rosling this isn't the case, when he set out to write this book the last before his death he wanted to prove this theory wrong.

     The book starts off with a simple enough multiple choice quiz for the reader to take. This serves to show our own biases in think. As the book progress, he goes on to show how each of our assumptions is basically wrong. The author manages to get his message across in such a way that doesn't feel like he is just ramming dry facts down our throats. Let's be honest for a minute no one my self-include likes to be told we are wrong. Maybe it's something deep down and primal, I don't know. And it would be to easy for a book such as this to do just that but between his calming way of writing and his anecdote about his own life, it felt to me more like a guiding hand. It also helps that he shows the times he himself was wrong and the consequence of those actions. He also gives us a comparison to our own lives which for me helped get the information to settle into my brain. I suppose it is easier to write of countries with less than us as all being the same level of poor. That all as we would call them third world countries have changed so little in the last few decades. But this, as he points out, is also not right.  

     After finishing this book I must confess I felt better about this small spinning rock in outer space. While our world may be far from perfect, it is certainly a lot better than it has been. For everything we have done in this world, things are starting to look up. And while there are still threats out there people are doing the best they can to solve them. But this is not just a book of blame and how our views may not be so true. He also looks into the reasons behind why we have come to think this way and the root causes of each of the problems. How a steady drip feed of the worst humanity has to offer can leave you feeling a little depressed. It gives a great fresh view of the world with eyes that are maybe not so blinkered off from real life. And unlike a lot of the information, we are given he has the stats to prove it to us all if we are just willing to give it a chance.

     This is a book I realize will not be for everyone, although I think everyone could benefit from it. He shows the world is a lot less black and white than we would all think and that the world has become shades upon shades. That even the poorest countries are catching up faster than ever before. So as he says if you are feeling stressed out about the state of the world, take a breath and check the facts, because surprise, surprise the news never shows the whole truth. Look deeper check your sources and try and get a clearer picture of what is really going on.