Powerful ideas from top nonfiction
Try Blinkist to get the key ideas from 7,000+ bestselling nonfiction titles and podcasts. Listen or read in just 15 minutes.
Start your free trial
Blink 3 of 8 - The 5 AM Club
by Robin Sharma
Listen to the Intro
Getting Better summary
Charles Kenny
Why Global Development Is Succeeding and How We Can Improve the World Even More
16 mins
Brief summary
Getting Better by Charles Kenny explores the progress made in global health, education, longevity, and equality. It argues that despite challenges, the world is getting better and offers insights into how we can continue this positive trend.
Table of Contents
Getting Better
Summary of 7 key ideas
Audio & text in the Blinkist app
Key idea 1 of 7
The income gap between rich and poor countries around the globe is nothing new.
Most people know that there is not only an income gap within economies but also across different countries. But do you know how large this gap actually is?
Here’s a fact that’ll shock you: around 1 billion people in the world live on less than a dollar a day.
But how is this possible when Western countries have developed so much over the past fifty years?
One reason is that there has been a forty-year stagnation in African incomes since the 1960s. For example, Senegal had an income per capita of $1,776 in 1960 and $1,407 in 2004. The gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in the United States, in contrast, was around seven times greater than in Senegal in 1960 and around twenty-six times larger in 2004. And while the average rural Zambian can expect to earn an approximate lifetime income of about $10,000, the average resident of New York City will earn $4.5 million.
Another reason why the gap is so large is that rich countries have always grown more rapidly than poor countries have.
In fact, the richest-poorest gap between countries grew from around thirty-three-fold in 1950 to around 127-fold today.
For example, in 1850, the Netherlands was the richest country in the world, with an income per capita of $2,371. In 2008, income per capita in the Netherlands was $24,695, while in that same year, in Congo-Zaire, income per capita was only $249. Or consider India in the 1990s: in 1993, India's bottom 40-percent had an income comparable to that of an English peasant in the 1400s!
Now that you know more about the actual gap between the richest and poorest countries in the world, you understand how lucky you are if you live in one of the richer countries.
Want to see all full key ideas from Getting Better?
Key ideas in Getting Better
More knowledge in less time
Read or listen
Get the key ideas from nonfiction bestsellers in minutes, not hours.
Find your next read
Get book lists curated by experts and personalized recommendations.
Shortcasts New
We’ve teamed up with podcast creators to bring you key insights from podcasts.
What is Getting Better about?
As pessimists talk of an economic development crisis, author Charles Kenny is optimistic in his assessment that in fact, all over the world, we’ve made enormous progress in overall quality of life. Getting Better shows that the spread of technology and ideas has fostered a revolution of happiness and standard of living unprecedented in human history. Kenny provides evidence to make us enthusiastic about the progress we’ve attained so far, and offers suggestions on what is to be done if we want to keep this progress alive.
Best quote from Getting Better
Life has been getting better, pretty much everywhere at pretty much the same rate.
—Charles Kenny
Who should read Getting Better?
- Anyone interested in international politics and development aid
- Anyone looking for a fresh and optimistic outlook on the world
- Anyone interested in economics and global development
Categories with Getting Better
Book summaries like Getting Better
People ❤️ Blinkist
Sven O.
It's highly addictive to get core insights on personally relevant topics without repetition or triviality. Added to that the apps ability to suggest kindred interests opens up a foundation of knowledge.
Thi Viet Quynh N.
Great app. Good selection of book summaries you can read or listen to while commuting. Instead of scrolling through your social media news feed, this is a much better way to spend your spare time in my opinion.
Jonathan A.
Life changing. The concept of being able to grasp a book's main point in such a short time truly opens multiple opportunities to grow every area of your life at a faster rate.
Renee D.
Great app. Addicting. Perfect for wait times, morning coffee, evening before bed. Extremely well written, thorough, easy to use.
People also liked these summaries
4.7 Stars
Average ratings on iOS and Google Play
29 Million
Downloads on all platforms
10+ years
Experience igniting personal growth