A fascinating, eye-opening, and incredibly important read, especially in light of what's happening in the world today!

BookFilter review: TED talk superstar Hans Rosling devoted decades to the global fight against diseases like Ebola. But he became famous for fighting the scourge of ignorance -- specifically ignorance about the remarkable strides in health, population growth, and combatting extreme poverty seen in the last few decades and the last 100 years. His TED talk videos have racked up remarkable numbers, opening people's eyes -- if only for a moment -- to the good news around the world that should have us committing ever more resources to tools that work like the World Health Organization, vaccinations and more. Rosling spent the final year of his life fighting pancreatic cancer long enough to finish this book. It has two parallel goals. One is to emphasize the remarkable progress we have made around the world. The number of people in extreme poverty has been cut in HALF in the past 20 years. Some eighty percent of the world has some access to electricity. Life expectancy for the entire world is 70 years. Some eighty percent of one year old children have received at least one vaccination. (This book is a good companion piece to "The Great Surge" by Steve Radelet, which goes into fascinating detail about all of this.) The other track is to explain WHY people are so ignorant of this progress and what they can do to combat it. Essentially, Rosling offers handy ways to increase your critical thinking -- how to put the news in perspective, how to question the numbers (good or bad) about any issue), how to put things into perspective and so on. None of this is to urge complacency or suggest things are great. Rosling knew the planet faces grave issues. But those can only be tackled when we all understand the basic facts of our world and know how to think critically about the what to focus on and how to fix it. Bill Gates dubs this the most important books he's ever read. Well, no but it's a highly accessible summary of great news and offers useful tools for anyone willing to apply them. -- Michael Giltz