I haven't read the book, but Don’s precis of it, with his over-enthusiastic view of the modern world, tells me why someone would suggest that he has a “Pollyanna view” of the world and life.

Living longer: not necessarily a good thing. I visited my 98 year old mother-in-law on Mother’s Day, and that once vibrant, intelligent and kind lady’s situation tells me what a tyrant longevity is. As for longer life in Third World countries, well, that's just making the world more crowded for no good reason. Most of the people concerned would be too engrossed in just surviving to be thinking how long they live.

Fewer wars: there are still ongoing skirmishes throughout the world. There are threats of war from places like Korea and China; but, most of all, we are involved in the biggest war in history - the one with Islam; and we are losing it.

Less hunger: This one is particularly unbelievable, given that many Australians are struggling to provide for their families, or themselves in the case of pensioners and unemployed people, proper nutrition because of rising energy prices and a rapacious political class. Add growing homelessness - in a First World country - and it's impossible to believe that conditions in the Third World are as rosy as they are portrayed.

Progress in girls’ education and opportunities. Yes, in some cases, but it is increasingly undermined by vicious, loud-mouthed pseudo feminists who care more about establishing a Marxist utopia than they do about girls.

A bright view of the world is, like Pollyanna, fictitious.

Things are improving for those that have, and not for those who have not. Be they in Syria, Cambodia or the Philippines. Just to name a few countless examples. Two-thirds of the households in this world are places where there are no washing machines and all laundry needs to be done by hand and for several hours every day! And there are some places where all the household water needs to be ferried in buckets. Persistent drought and desertification have resulted in somewhere north of 50 million displaced refugees. Yet dream castle dwellers continue to spruik, that things are improving? No, they're not! Unless you're a blind fool with the blinked head buried somewhere warm and comfortable. Yes, former impoverished states like China and India have made great strides and magnificent economic improvement! What of it? When a once mighty manufacturing economy has a massive rust belt, soup kitchens and tent cities and the homeless here are almost the only things growing. Go back to your books and extremely subjective analysis Don. You're not helping, just standing in the way! Alan B.

ttbn and AlanB, you are doing exactly what the Commenters I wrote about did. You focus on something (with respect) you think you know about, and miss what Rosling was saying. In brief things are better than they were thirty, fifty, a hundred years ago. Not that they are perfect, not that are ideal, just that they are better than they used to be. And ttbn some of your remarks about those less privileged seem to me most patronising