Hans Rosling is well known from his TED Talks and BBC video highlighting global development trends. His friendly tone of the videos is evident throughout this book which was co-written by his son and daughter-in-law.

Rosling's main thesis is that our (referring to educated Westerners), view of the world is incorrect. He reveals the reader's ignorance through asking ten deceptively simple questions, and by revealing the answers, destroying their confidence, and highlighting their need to read the book. Each of these ten questions is linked with a chapter (a deception). One example is generalisation. People tend to split the world into developed and developing countries. This is evident in 1965 but as Rosling shows, using facts sourced from the UN, that the the world has changed considerably in the previous half-century. He suggests a new four level model, most people living between rich and poor. A further illusion is the destiny instinct ("Africa will always remain poor") and points us to examples from China, and how their culture and economy has dramatically changed in the previous few years. Rosling dryly comments about the widespread foolishness "In fact having an incorrect view of the world is almost accepted nowadays ... A single typo in your CV and you probably don’t get the job. But if you put 1 billion people on the wrong continent...you can even get a promotion". Each illusion is accompanied by a sketch, with half shown at the beginning of the chapter, and the remainder at the end, revealing the optical illusion to mirror the chapter's illusion. This visualisation helps keep the focus of the chapter there.

Since reading this book, I have become much more positive about the future of humanity. I now find myself challenging friends who echo anxieties of negative new stories by referring to the "beautiful statistics" such as increase in guitar ownership around the world. I also notice more frequently the influence of China on the world economy. Recent stories of the impact that the nCov virus has had on the luxury fashion industry, and the reaction of Volkswagen and sporting bodies to recent news events in China are echoes of the growing power. His plea for us to teach humility to our children (and with that, possibly ourselves) also appealed. "It means letting your mistakes trigger curiosity instead of embarrassment (p247)". As a software engineer, the hammer metaphor (“give a child a hammer and everything looks like a nail.”), was helpful. He mentioned, to my interest too briefly, the abundance of unsuitable Ebola Apps during the Ebola epidemic. It is full of personal anecdotes and the acknowledgements section suggests that many more have been left on the editor's floor. Whilst anecdotes highlight a point in a personal way, Rosling sometimes seems to extrapolate a broader point from a single example: "Flaking walls keep away the richer patients and their time-consuming demands for costly treatments, allowing hospitals to use their limited resources to treat more people in more cost-effective ways", is an interesting, yet not supported assertion.

Despite this minor limitation, the high readability and serious points made mean I would recommend this to anyone who has an interest in the society of our planet.

Potential Follow Ups:

• Investigate more on the growing impact of China and Africa, starting with books such as the AI superpowers, and Collier.
• Website highlighting the basic facts about where you live. LE, age, background, education, politics, engaged in politics, biggest employer. Number of children. Created in a similar quiz.
• Website highlighting beautiful statistics around the world - like Our World In Data yet applicable to a wider audience.