Factfulness

Most people, experts included, answer basic questions about global living conditions worse than random guessing would predict. Hans Rosling, writing with Ola Rosling and Anna Rosling Ronnlund, identifies ten instincts that distort how the world gets read: the urge to split everything into two camps, to assume decline, to fear the vivid, to generalise from a single case. Each instinct is illustrated with data on income, health, education and population, then paired with a practical correction. What results is a method for checking claims rather than a set of conclusions to adopt. Ten instincts, briefly: • Ten identified biases, each with a way of countering it • Statistics on health, income and education presented accessibly • Global development framed by evidence instead of headline impressions • Habits of thought that transfer to reading news and reports generally Suited to readers of global development, data literacy and social science. Published by Sceptre Books and available from Boipoka.