From Third World to First: The Singapore Story, 1965-2000 » (1 ED)

Lee Kuan Yew was born in Singapore on September 16, 1923, a third-generation descendant of immigrants from China's Guangdong Province. He read law at Cambridge University, England. In 1954 he formed the People's Action Party, which won the first Singapore general election five years later. Lee became the country's first prime minister in 1959, at the age of thirty-five. In November 1990 he resigned the office to assume the post of senior minister in the Singapore cabinet.

Lee Kuan Yew presided over the transformation of Singapore from a fractious and squalid colonial backwater into one of the shining jewels of Asia. In less than half a century, through complex and ingenious economic and social engineering, Singapore has melded a multi-ethnic, multi-racial population into a thriving, safe and incredibly productive society that boasts the world's #1 airline, the busiest maritime port, nearly nonexistent unemployment, and a lower infant mortality rate than the United States. In this highly anticipated volume that chronicles the social and economic triumphs that made headlines around the world, Lee Kuan Yew reveals the strategies that made him one of the world's most powerful elder statesmen, and takes a hard look at the burgeoning economic and political might of China and its portents for the future.

BusinessWeek - Bruce Nussbaum

With his intolerance, hypocrisy and stands as one of Asia's great modern leaders Lee Kuan Yew, founder and father of Singapore, makes a strong case in his fascinating and powerful memoir, From Third World to First