“I am in favour of sending students on scholarships to Britain instead [of the USA], because I am sure they will come back. In the UK, you do not stay behind because you are not welcome.” – Lee Kuan Yew

Whether you think Lee Kuan Yew was a dictator or a saviour, it’s hard not to agree that he was hugely influential. Singapore went from a city that was actually thrown out of the Malaysia union, with rather bleak prospects, to an economic powerhouse that remains what is probably the most developed country in Asia. With a ruthless focus on human capital, eliminating corruption, and meritocracy, it is rich, successful, and – to some – overly sanitized.

One Man’s View of the World is Lee’s views on trends in the wider world, taken region by region. It is interesting because he is scathingly blunt, as the quote above suggests. He dismisses Europe as doomed to decline and discord because they wouldn’t accept political unification along with their economic union, and without it the countries are all too small to compete; he believes the Middle East is in trouble as long as most people’s first loyalty is to tribe, not country, which means they fail to acknowledge the equality of all citizens and so neglect much of their human capital, particularly women; he respects American dynamism, but worries their educational system is phenomenal at the top but fails everyone else, weakening the middle class; and he believes China will continue to flourish, but because of its emphasis on a strong center, will evolve very different institutions that the Western world, sometimes to its cost, as for example its failure to have an independent judiciary.

Some of the book is a bit fluffy, particularly some interviews he gives to the Singapore press, but the parts where he gives his frank opinion on the medium-term prospects of various regions are definitely worth the read. Much like his record, whether you agree or disagree, and opinions are heated on both sides, his ideas are worth thinking about.