Factfulness

Why it’s on the list: Hans Rosling on why educated audiences score worse than chance on basic questions about global poverty, child mortality and population — ten instincts that distort our picture of the world, each set against the data. A book about holding a quantitative picture of the world rather than an emotional one, which is the same discipline investing requires.

Where I heard about it

• Spotted at Amazon Books at Washington Square, Tigard — December 2018 (Books photo album)

• Fil Arons (@FilArons) — in the required section of his recommended-reading list, November 2025.

Connections

• Hans Rosling — the author, who died the year before publication.
• Statistics — the toolkit, and the reason the ignorance test lands.
• Progress Studies — the field that took up this book’s underlying claim.
• Historical Futurism — the portfolio idea: reading the long trend rather than the headline.