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

Factfulness: The stress-relieving practise of only holding beliefs for which you have solid evidence.

We consistently provide incorrect responses to basic inquiries regarding global trends, such as how many girls complete school, why the world's population is growing, and what proportion of people live in poverty. So incorrect that teachers, journalists, Nobel laureates, and investment bankers are constantly outguessed by a chimpanzee selecting responses at random.

In Factfulness, international health professor and TED sensation Hans Rosling, together with his two longtime partners, Ola and Anna, presents a revolutionary new theory on why this occurs. They expose the 10 innate tendencies that skew our perception, ranging from our propensity to see the world in binary terms (often including us and them) to the way we consume information, which instills anxiety, to our perception of progress (perceiving that most things are becoming worse).

Our ignorance of what we do not know is the source of our problems, and even our best estimations are influenced by biases that are predictable and unconscious.

It turns out that the situation of the world is much better than we may have imagined, despite all of its flaws. That does not negate the existence of valid worries. But we risk losing our capacity to concentrate on the things that really endanger us if we obsess about everything rather than adopting a fact-based worldview.

Factfulness is an urgent and vital book that will transform your perspective on the world and give you the tools you need to react to the chances and crises of the future. It is inspiring and revelatory, full of colourful anecdotes and emotional tales.