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From Third World to First

Lee Kuan Yew HarperCollins, 2000

I was never a prisoner of any theory. What guided me were reason and reality. The acid test I applied to every theory or scheme was, would it work?

Singapore in 1965: no natural resources, no hinterland, a population of strangers. Lee Kuan Yew’s account of how he built a functioning state from scratch — the decisions made, the trade-offs taken, the things he refused to compromise on.

Read the full essay at HarperCollins