Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think

by Hans Rosling

Published by Flatiron Books
ISBN 9781250107817

Book review by Andrea Bandelli, Executive Director, Science Gallery International, Dublin, Ireland

Bill Gates gave a copy of this book as a gift to all college graduates in the USA this year, and for a reason. This book truly changes your perspective on the world, on your own understandings and on your own biases.

The author, Hans Rosling, worked for many years in the field of global health before achieving world fame with his TED talks where he showed the relationship between health and global development in astonishing ways.

The book takes us on a journey through 10 dangerous “instincts” - or biases - that prevent us from seeing facts for what they are, giving thus rise to all sorts of misunderstandings, prejudices and misconceptions.

The first chapter is dedicated to getting rid of the “us” versus “them”, that is the binary differentiation between the developed world and the developing countries. With sublime clarity, Rosling shows how there are actually four big categories of income levels in the world, and all countries are on a path from the lowest to the highest. Rosling has a very effective way to describe this: “Think of the four income levels as the levels of a computer game. Everyone wants to move from Level 1 to Level 2 and upward through the levels from there. Only, it’s a very strange computer game, because Level 1 is the hardest.”

The vast majority of the world sits on levels 2 and 3; if we look at all statistics about global development, from child mortality to education to life expectancy, we see that our own level 4 countries were actually level 3 and 2 not long ago. One of the most reliable indicators of progress, the combined statistics about income level and life expectancy, shows for instance that in 1975 Sweden was exactly where Malaysia is today; and in 1948 it was just under where Egypt is today. When Sweden was a level 1 country with most people living in extreme poverty (that was still true in 1863), conditions of life were worse than current level 1 countries such as Afghanistan.

Rosling makes it very clear that his aim is not to portrait an optimistic view of the world; rather, he defines himself as a serious possibilist: “someone who neither hopes without reason, nor fears without reason, someone who constantly resists the overdramatic worldview.” From a global perspective, the world is getting better: but we are biased with a negativity instinct that prevents us to appreciate the positive developments in society (this is what chapter 2 is about). Each chapter ends with a few tips and takeaway messages that help us see the facts for what they are. In this chapter, for instance, one takeaway message is learning to distinguish between “bad” (a level) and “better” (a direction of change): the state of the world can be bad and getting better at the same time. News and media play a big part in shaping our negativity instinct: good news is not news, and gradual improvements are not news either, therefore we simply don’t know about them. The third takeaway in this chapter is “beware of rosy past”: it’s increasingly common to glorify the past and the times bygone - but in so doing we forget all the suffering and the pain of those times.

Hans Rosling is a master in making sense of data and the book is thus also a terrific primer in statistics. Rather than just presenting loads of charts and figures, Rosling actually educates the reader in understanding those numbers and learning how to avoid the fallacies of simple conclusions. Every chapter is like a boost of wisdom which is given to us and that makes us better citizens of this world.

It is incredibly sad that Hans Rosling is not anymore with us, able to continue his groundbreaking work: but his legacy will touch the lives of many, and I strongly encourage you to learn how by reading this book.

More about the book (from the authors)