Author: Hans Rosling
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Rating: 5/5
Comment about the book “Facfulness”
As a rule, I am suspicious of endorsements in books. They always remind me of a true story about a book written by a professor that, in its back page, showed some testimonies of well know people. Apparently, none of these personalities had read the book, but they also did not complain, as it added to their status. Furthermore, it is always a bad idea to blindly follow the opinions of a so-called “authority”.
In this case, the endorsement comes from Bill Gates, and quite rightly so.
Encouraging
Everyday, speaking for myself, it is easy to become overwhelmed by the quantity of negative news: natural disasters, crimes, human misery. Once you read this book, some of this negative feeling goes away. As stated in the cover, the world is not in such a bad shape as we imagine.
I suspect that, for the activist pessimist, it will not make much difference. However, as you read the book, you can realise all that cxhanged in the world since our first social sciences classes in school. In fact, citing the author, although the situation is still not good, it is still much better than a few years back, and there are reasons to be hopeful.
Challenging
This is a challenging book in several aspects. The first one is that it makes us question us about our own prejudice our preconceptions. The author(s) do this in a very effective way, as they present a questionnaire right to begin with. And it is oh so easy to miss the right answers! To do it online, you can go directly to Gapminder.
Personally, I was impressed by the dramatism of certain activist movements. And, also by the consequences that you can take for your business.
Utilitarian, in a certain sense
One of the most moving episodes of the book, in my opinion, is the part about the treatment of a child in Mozambique. And it is also one of the several examples throughout the book where it shows that takling care of the tree instead of the forest may sometimes not be the optimal to be done. It is hard not to recall some of the arguments of Peter Singer.
For future development
Just keeping in mind the rules of factfulness would be a great achievement.