The History Salon.

The End of Poverty?

Today it is American’s thought that they are the most successful nation in the world. However Hans Rosling’s video shows us otherwise. America may be very successful on the wealth side, but they are behind countries i.e. Singapore. (the healthiest country today) People often think Africa is the least successful country in the world. However, Africa has advanced the most from their original position. They have gone from a medieval system to an organized government.Yet even though they have advanced greatly they are still very far behind the rest of the world. How do they escape this hole? They escape through education and technology. They need education to learn their culture and where they had come from. Education is probably the most important factor for Africa to become successful. Africans need to learn things like mathematics and science so they can apply those things to every day life and jobs and/or farming. This will allow them to gain money. Money leads to good means of food, which leads to good health, which leads to long life. Because of our ethnocentric ideas we believe that Africa is a very unsuccessful country and that America leads in just about everything. However, Hans Rosling’s video tells us very differently it tells us that although we are a successful country we do not lead in everything including health. It also teaches us that Africa is the most successful continent in terms of progress.

Written by Andrew Costello for History Salon

Rosling, Hans. “Hans Rosling’s new insights on poverty | Video on TED.com.” TED: Ideas worth spreading. http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_reveals_new_insights_on_poverty.html (accessed October 13, 2011).