Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling
Authors: Hans Rosling
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kept secret by the Chinese government for 36 years. It wasn’t described in English to the outside world until 1996. (Think about it. Could any government keep the death of 15 million people a global secret today?)
Even if the Chinese government had told the world about this tragedy, the UN World Food Programme—which today distributes food to wherever it is most needed in the world—couldn’t have helped. It wasn’t created until 1961.
The misconception that the world is getting worse is very difficult to maintain when we put the present in its historical context. We shouldn’t diminish the tragedies of the droughts and famines happening right now. But knowledge of the tragedies of the past should help everyone realize how the world has become both much more transparent and much better at getting help to where it’s needed.
I Was Born in Egypt
My home country of Sweden is today on Level 4 and one of the richest and healthiest countries in the world. (Saying that a country is on Level 4 means that the average person in that country is on Level 4. It doesn’t mean that everyone in Sweden is on Level 4. Remember, averages disguise spreads.) But it hasn’t always been so.
Now I’m going to show you my favorite graph. There’s a color version of it on the inside front cover of this book. I call it the World Health Chart and it is like a world map for health and wealth. As with the bubble graph you saw in the previous chapter, each country is represented by a bubble, with the size of the bubble showing the size of the country’s population. As before poorer countries are on the left and richer countries are on the right; healthier countries are higher up, and sicker countries are lower down.
Notice that there are not two groups. The world is not divided into two. There are countries on all levels, all the way from the sick and poor in the bottom left corner to the rich and healthy in the top right corner, where Sweden is. And most countries are in the middle.
Now this next bit is exciting.
The trail of little bubbles shows Sweden’s health and wealth for every year since 1800. What tremendous progress! I have highlighted some countries that correspond, in 2017, to important years from Sweden’s past.
1948 was a very important year. The Second World War was over, Sweden topped the medals table at the Winter Olympics, and I was born. The Sweden I was born into in 1948 was where Egypt is on the health-wealth map today. That is to say, it was right in the middle of Level 3. Life conditions in 1950s Sweden were similar to those in Egypt or other countries on Level 3 today. There were still open sewage ditches and it wasn’t uncommon for children to drown in bodies of water close to home. On Level 3, parents work hard, away from their children, and the government has not yet enforced regulations to protect water with fences.
Sweden kept improving during my lifetime. During the 1950s and 1960s it progressed all the way from Egypt today to Malaysia today. By 1975, the year Anna and Ola were born, Sweden, like Malaysia today, was just about to enter Level 4.
Let’s go backward now. When my mother was born, in 1921, Sweden was like Zambia is now. That’s Level 2.
My grandmother was the Lesothian member of our family. When she was born in 1891, Sweden was like Lesotho is today. That’s the country with the shortest life expectancy in the world today, right on the border between Level 1 and 2, almost in extreme poverty. My grandmother hand-washed all the laundry for her family of nine all her adult life. But as she grew older, she witnessed the miracle of development as both she and Sweden reached Level 3. By the end of her life she had an indoor cold-water tap and a latrine bucket in the basement: luxury compared to her childhood, when there had been no running water. All four of my grandparents could spell and count, but none of them was literate enough to read for pleasure. They couldn’t read children’s
Even if the Chinese government had told the world about this tragedy, the UN World Food Programme—which today distributes food to wherever it is most needed in the world—couldn’t have helped. It wasn’t created until 1961.
The misconception that the world is getting worse is very difficult to maintain when we put the present in its historical context. We shouldn’t diminish the tragedies of the droughts and famines happening right now. But knowledge of the tragedies of the past should help everyone realize how the world has become both much more transparent and much better at getting help to where it’s needed.
I Was Born in Egypt
My home country of Sweden is today on Level 4 and one of the richest and healthiest countries in the world. (Saying that a country is on Level 4 means that the average person in that country is on Level 4. It doesn’t mean that everyone in Sweden is on Level 4. Remember, averages disguise spreads.) But it hasn’t always been so.
Now I’m going to show you my favorite graph. There’s a color version of it on the inside front cover of this book. I call it the World Health Chart and it is like a world map for health and wealth. As with the bubble graph you saw in the previous chapter, each country is represented by a bubble, with the size of the bubble showing the size of the country’s population. As before poorer countries are on the left and richer countries are on the right; healthier countries are higher up, and sicker countries are lower down.
Notice that there are not two groups. The world is not divided into two. There are countries on all levels, all the way from the sick and poor in the bottom left corner to the rich and healthy in the top right corner, where Sweden is. And most countries are in the middle.
Now this next bit is exciting.
The trail of little bubbles shows Sweden’s health and wealth for every year since 1800. What tremendous progress! I have highlighted some countries that correspond, in 2017, to important years from Sweden’s past.
1948 was a very important year. The Second World War was over, Sweden topped the medals table at the Winter Olympics, and I was born. The Sweden I was born into in 1948 was where Egypt is on the health-wealth map today. That is to say, it was right in the middle of Level 3. Life conditions in 1950s Sweden were similar to those in Egypt or other countries on Level 3 today. There were still open sewage ditches and it wasn’t uncommon for children to drown in bodies of water close to home. On Level 3, parents work hard, away from their children, and the government has not yet enforced regulations to protect water with fences.
Sweden kept improving during my lifetime. During the 1950s and 1960s it progressed all the way from Egypt today to Malaysia today. By 1975, the year Anna and Ola were born, Sweden, like Malaysia today, was just about to enter Level 4.
Let’s go backward now. When my mother was born, in 1921, Sweden was like Zambia is now. That’s Level 2.
My grandmother was the Lesothian member of our family. When she was born in 1891, Sweden was like Lesotho is today. That’s the country with the shortest life expectancy in the world today, right on the border between Level 1 and 2, almost in extreme poverty. My grandmother hand-washed all the laundry for her family of nine all her adult life. But as she grew older, she witnessed the miracle of development as both she and Sweden reached Level 3. By the end of her life she had an indoor cold-water tap and a latrine bucket in the basement: luxury compared to her childhood, when there had been no running water. All four of my grandparents could spell and count, but none of them was literate enough to read for pleasure. They couldn’t read children’s
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