Factfulness

Rosling opens Factfulness with his childhood dream of being a sword swallower, a dream he gave up on when he went to medical school. Years later, he treated a patient who worked as a sword swallower, and his dream was rekindled. Rosling learned to swallow a sword. He reflects on how he loves sword swallowing because as a craft, it’s always “inspired humans to think beyond the obvious” (2).

With sword swallowing and the obvious in mind, Rosling asks the reader to answer thirteen easily researched questions about the world’s population. Following the questions, he provides the answers and informs readers that if they did poorly on the test, “you are in very good company” (6). Regardless of intelligence, education, or geographic location, people who take this quiz systematically get 11 of the 13 questions incorrect, and most people choose the same incorrect answers. They consistently choose answers that make the world sound like it is in much worse condition than it actually is.

Rosling attributes this phenomenon to what he calls an “overdramatic worldview,” which is the tendency for people to believe the worst about the world and for those negative beliefs to compound over time. After finding the