This book came highly recommended by CNN's Fareed Zakaria, whose show I watch every Sunday on the treadmill.
Zakaria had made a point in a previous show about President Obama's supposed Pivot East, the idea of focusing diplomatic focus towards Asia as opposed to the Middle East and Europe. Zakaria pointed out that this strategy wasn't really happening, with America still fixated in the wrong direction in year eight of Obama's presidency.
I've been thinking ever since about making my own pivot east in my personal reading and study. My studies have almost completely missed Asia. And now that GoneReading is working more and more with Asian organizations and companies - from India to China - I want and really need to learn more about Asian history, culture, society and commerce.
And so my Pivot East begins with this book.
The book provides a short, 160 page overview of Lee Kuan Yew's perspective on world affairs. It consists of quotes by and about Yew from a wide variety of sources spanning decades, in answer to pointed questions on diplomacy, leadership, governance, human nature and much, much more.
Yew's perspective is fascinating, succinct yet broad, and most importantly based on practice. As the first Prime Minister of Singapore, Yew led that tiny city-state from the third world to the first in just one generation. Given my love of helping the developing world, his life fascinates me.
I don't agree with everything he says, but there is a lot to learn from the man. He has written extensively himself, and I've added much of his writing to my queue, along with a great many other tomes on Asia.
Up next, Henry Kissinger's On China.
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