'A hopeful book about the potential for human progress when we work off facts rather than our inherent biases.' BARACK OBAMA
The perfect Christmas gift: a message of hope for our troubled times.
*the #1 Sunday Times bestseller * instant New York Times bestseller * an Observer 'best brainy book of the decade' * #1 Wall Street Journal bestseller * Irish Times bestseller * Audio bestseller * Guardian bestseller *
---Longlisted for the 2018 Financial Times/McKinsey Business Book of the Year---
'One of the most important books I've ever read - an indispensable guide to thinking clearly about the world.' BILL GATES
'Hans Rosling tells the story of "the secret silent miracle of human progress" as only he can. But Factfulness does much more than that. It also explains why progress is so often secret and silent and teaches readers how to see it clearly.' MELINDA GATES
Factfulness: The stress-reducing habit of only carrying opinions for which you have strong supporting facts.
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 and a man who can make data sing, Hans Rosling, together with his two long-time collaborators Anna and Ola, offers a radical 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.
Inspiring and revelatory, filled with lively anecdotes and moving stories, Factfulness is an urgent and essential book that will change the way you see the world.
'This book is my last battle in my life-long mission to fight devastating ignorance, and my final attempt at making an impact on the world. It has been my daily inspiration and joy. In my previous battles I armed myself with huge data sets, beautiful software, an energetic lecturing style and a Swedish bayonet for sword swallowing. It wasn't enough. But I hope that this book will be.
When you ask people simple questions about global trends, they systematically get the answers wrong. How many young women go to school? What's the average life expectancy across the world? What will the global population will be in 2050? Do the majority of people live in rich or poor countries?
In Factfulness, Hans Rosling and his two lifelong collaborators, Ola Rosling and Anna Rosling-Rönnlund, show why this happens. Based on a lifetime's work promoting a fact-based worldview, they reveal the ten dramatic instincts, and the key preconceptions, that lead to us consistently misunderstanding how the world really works.
Inspiring and revelatory, Factfulness is a book of stories by a late legend, for anyone who wants to really understand the world.
An insistently hopeful, fact-based booster shot for a doomsaying, world-weary population [which] parts the dingy curtains of global pessimism to reveal an alternate and uplifting perspective on the state of world issues today. Co-written with Rosling's son and daughter-in-law, the book effectively educates, uplifts, and reassures readers. . . In compelling readers to comprehend the positive aspects of world changes using practical thinking tools, Rosling delivers a sunny global prognosis with a sigh of relief. - Kirkus
