Statistics and anecdotal contexts come together in Numbers Don’t Lie

? UNDER THE LAMPLIGHT-

Bill Gates’ favorite author, Vaclav Smil’s book Numbers Don't Lie is his most accessible book to-date and packs a lot of punch. Its 71 chapters cover a wide range of topics from science to history, each taking a seemingly random statistic and putting it into a greater context. In one of the chapters he explains that in 1926, the average French person drank 136 liters of wine but by 2020, that figure had fallen to a third of what it was, at 40 liters. He then goes on to question if the drastic decrease in drinks is owed to French people’s increased health consciousness or to the myriad of ways people can distract themselves that have emerged over the last century.