Book Tip No. 29 (2018): FACTFULNESS. HOW WE LEARN TO SEE THE WORLD AS IT REALLY IS.
New York 2018.
When Bill Gates praises a book already on the title (“One of the most important books I’ve ever read”), then this book by Hans Rosling seems to be guaranteed not only sales success, but at least public attention. Rightly so?
The author’s message is already in the subtitle: “Ten reasons we’re wrong about the world – and why things are better than you think.” Hans Rosling has spent his research life finding out how much or rather: how little we know about the state of our world. The “Everything is getting worse” attitude, which is found in many media, Hans Rosling opposes an evidence-based approach. He explores in many international studies how people think about the state of the world.
His core result: we perform worse than chimpanzees. They would generate a random distribution of answers, but we humans have a systematically distorted, negative view of the world, we do not know many of the important (very positive) developments – which are very nicely graphically prepared in the book (or also on Rosling’s website) to read. The book is a must-read not only for journalists, pessimists, politicians and world improvers.
An evidence-based view of the world is necessary to design and implement fact-based future strategies at the international level. For symbolic politics as well as for the various ideologies, there is little room in an evidence-based world.
Dr. Hans-Christian Riekhof