Hans Rosling

How I Learned to Understand the World - a memoir

Beaverton Library 921 Rosling, Hans

with Fanny Härgestam

No index.

27 July 1948 – 7 February 2017 Though written as a first person memoir, the book is more like a biography written by Härgestam, based on interviews with Rosling as he was dying of pancreatic cancer (diagnosed February 2016). The book describes Rosling's ancestors, whose prospects improved as Sweden climbed from feudal poverty towards a modern nation.

• Age 16, cycling trip around England and Wales
• 1966 age 18, hitchhiked to Paris, Rome, Greece, east Berlin (made it easy to detest communism).
• 1967 Meets FRELIMO (Mozambican Liberation Front) leader Eduardo Mondlane
• 1968 travels with Agneta
• 1972 Feb backpacking in Sri Lanka, then visiting student at St. Johns College Bangalore
  • Indian students far more studious, read all of Harrison while Rosling read summaries
• 1974 daughter Anna
• p42 1975 son Ola. In northern Hudiksvall as foundation year doctor
• p45-48 testicular cancer, no mets
• p51 1979 October to Maputo in southern Mozambique, sent to Nacala 2200 km north
• p55 Nacala 85K, district 300K, one hospital with 50 beds and one doctor
• p66 mentor, mission doctor Ingegerd Rooth, "... extreme poverty, don't try to do things perfectly. ...wasting time and resources ... " with better uses.
• p67 two by two table: Easy/Hard, Important/Not. focus on Easy/Important
• p78 need 100 times greater than Sweden, with 1% of the resources
• p81 doctor friend visits from Nampula regional hospital
• p85 kill the baby to save the mother
• p90 in one year in Nacala, 52 children died in hospital an 672 at home. Better to organize local clinics than give complex care in hospital.
• p92 35 years ago, childhood mortality 26%, now 8% (like Sweden between 1860 and 1920)
• p84 1981 January: Agneta to Sweden for birth of third child (died), Agneta with complications.
• p100 respect from village for bringing dead mother and child home to village (Mama Rosa's idea).
• p103 epidemic - p120 combination of undernourishment and improperly detoxified cassava
• p122 returned to Sweden.
• about here the story telescopes and becomes episodic. Perhaps fewer notes and Härgestam interviews.