Do you eat too much sugar? Is violence in the world increasing or decreasing? What proportion of your country are Muslim? What does it cost to raise a child? How much do we need to save for retirement? How much tax do the rich pay? When we estimate the answers to these fundamental questions that directly affect our lives, we tend to be vastly wrong, irrespective of how educated we are. This landmark book - informed by over ten exclusive major polling studies by IPSOS across 40 countries - asks why in the age of the Internet, where information should be more accessible than ever, we remain so poorly informed.