How I learned to understand the world

by Hans Rosling (with Fanny Härgestam)

ISBN: 978-1-529-32778-6

First published 2017

244 pages

Publisher: sceptrebooks.co.uk / gapminder.org

Cover photograph by Ben Wiseman

4/5 Stars

Hans Rosling was a public health educator, speaking at conferences and events across the world. When he found out he had cancer he immediately started the process of gathering his notes and starting an autobiography, which was published after his death in 2017.

The book was written to explain how Hans had come to an understanding of the world, and how many of the ideas held by politicians, CEOs and the public were incorrect and outdated.

From the facts, he would tell a ‘good news story’ about global development, one that hadn’t been told before.

The book is at its most poignant when describing the overwhelming poverty in Mozambique the first few years after independence from Portugal. Working in a hospital in a port city in that country, most people never visited the hospital. Hans realised health prevention would save proportionally more lives.

When a life couldn’t be saved, the whole human story is both heart warming and gut wrenching.

For example, Hans is warmly greeted and celebrated by a village in the interior of Mozambique. “Why are you treating me this way?” asks Hans.

“Because you treated my wife so well when she came to see you, when she was sick in her pregnancy”, says the husband of the wife Hans treated.

But Hans has trouble remembering. The villagers though deeply respect this ‘Tall Doctor’, but Hans still doesn’t understand. He asks the question, “Can I see your wife, I don’t remember the case”.

“Oh no” says the husband. “My wife died at the hospital. You tried everything you could to save her. You arranged to transport the bodies back to the village,” said the husband, proudly. “We gave them a proper funeral.”

And Hans remembered.