From Third World to First

Singapore's founding father Lee Kuan Yew recounts how the island, given little chance of survival at independence in 1965, grew from a British colonial trading post into a thriving Asian metropolis. Drawing on his own detailed notes and on government papers and official records not published before, he describes how he and his cabinet colleagues ended the communist threat to the young state, built roads through land that was still mostly swamp, raised an army from a population divided by race and ideology, and stamped out corruption left from colonial days. He also covers mass public housing and a national airline, and writes frankly about his hard line toward opponents and his views on democracy.

Deliveroo founder Will Shu marveled that Lee nearly on his own turned a poor country into a first-world one within a single generation. Xi-Wei Yeo, director of Living Theories, counts it among his key non-fiction inspirations for the candor behind Lee's hard decisions.