Factfulness

Ask a group of educated adults why the world's population is growing, how many girls finish school, or how many people live in poverty, and most of them answer wrong. According to the authors, the errors are so consistent that a chimpanzee picking answers at random would score better than journalists, Nobel laureates and investment bankers.

This is a work of non-fiction about global trends and the habits of mind that distort how people read them. Hans Rosling, a Professor of International Health, writes with his long-time collaborators Anna Rosling Rönnlund and Ola Rosling. Together they set out an explanation for why these mistakes happen and name ten instincts that skew our view of the world.

Their central claim is that the world, for all its flaws, is in much better shape than most people assume. They also argue that constant worry about everything leaves us less able to focus on the dangers that deserve attention. The remedy they propose is a habit they call factfulness: holding only those opinions that rest on solid facts, which they present as a way to reduce stress.

The book is built on data, but it leans on lively anecdotes and personal stories to make the numbers land. It suits general readers who want to test their assumptions about population, education and poverty, and who are willing to find out how often they have been wrong.