Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I picked this book up on my way to Ireland, at Schiphol Airport. I had already seen this book earlier this year, also when I was travelling. This time I decided to go for it, and see what it was all about. I was absolutely, positively surprised by how good this book is. So good, in fact, that it really changed my view of the world, and such books are rare.

Factfulness is a wonderful book about how our world view is mostly wrong, and why. Hans Rosling takes you on a journey, and confronts you with your own inadequacies. He tells you how our brain is hardwired to think in a certain way, how you can detect when this is happening, and then train yourself to prevent this.

Each chapter of this book governs a different aspect of how we usually are (made to) think, and is filled with anecdotes about Hans Rosling’s personal life, useful tips, and loads, and loads of facts about the world. The book is filled to the brim with information that is shared with the reader in graphs, diagrams, and as data.

Another thing that I really appreciated about this book is that it was meant as Hans Rosling’s legacy. He wanted to write this book before he died. This book is his gift to us, and I’m so glad he shared all of this knowledge with us.

If you feel like the world is a bad place, and you believe everything is getting worse all the time, I would really urge you to read this book. Things aren’t as bad as they seem, and although there are bad things in the world, it doesn’t mean we have also made a ton of progress. As Hans himself put it so aptly; imagine the world as a baby in an incubator. Sure, things are looking bad, but they are getting better.

One of the most wonderful things about this book is that everything is based on hard facts and data. Countless hours of research, and fact checking. Hans himself says he’s not an optimist, but a possibilist. Everything is possible, if we only put our minds to it.

Do yourself a favour and read this book. It will change your world view for the better! It’s like a feel good movie, except this is real.

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