It's not a biography but it has a lot of insights on the late Lee Kuan Yew's thoughts about world affairs. From the book, I can see that he is not one to mince his words and tells it like it is. So therefore, don't read the book if you are not ready to disagree or accept that there are different opinions others have about a certain issue. I would say, read it if you are curious to see the perspective of a self-reflective , intelligent man who has traveled to see the world and you may get a lesson or two from the book.

Not a view I respect, and here's why:

"A suggestion was made: 'Mandarin is well-established among the population now. Let us go back to dialects so the old can enjoy dramas.' I objected, pointing out that I had, as prime minister, paid a heavy price getting the dialect programmes suppressed and encouraging people to speak Mandarin. So why backtrack? I had antagonised an entire generation of Chinese, who found their favourite dialect programmes cut off. There was one very good narrator of stories called Lee Dai Sor on Rediffusion, and we just switched off his show. Why should I allow Cantonese or Hokkien to infect the next generation? If you bring it back, you will find portions of the older generation beginning to speak in dialects to their children and grandchildren."

My god. This book was published in 2013, at a time when Mandarin was one of the most widely spoken languages in the world. There is absolutely no concern that Mandarin will die out any time soon. Cantonese, Hokkien, and most other languages in the Chinese language family, on the other hand, are increasingly under threat from people like Lee, who tend to view them as "less refined" or "less civilised" knockoff versions of Mandarin, instead of highly developed and individual languages of their own. Nationalism and imperialism might begin with militaristic conquering and suppressing of another population, but they end with destruction of that other population's culture. I have no love for people who promote decreased linguistic diversity. There are no benefits to a global language, or even fewer languages spoken worldwide, that are not vastly outweighed by the countless losses inherent in the death of a language.

I find it truly extraordinary that Lee Kuan Yew is apparently regarded as intelligent or shrewd in any regard, given how consistently and disrespectfully he reduced entire countries and cultures to a handful of basic traits. Where I'm from we usually call that "racist." The fellating of the West, shitting on the Middle East, and ass-kissing of China was disappointing but not surprising, given how popular this particular combination of lazy, devoid-of-nuance opinions is amongst prominent politicians. Not even Lee's "view" of Singapore was worth much of anything! News flash, idiot, Singapore isn't China, and not all Singaporeans are even of Chinese descent. Contrary to popular nationalist opinion, diversity and multiculturalism are what make a society strong, not monolithism. A culture that speaks only one language and has only one identity will stagnate and dissolve into nothing. It's almost like nationalists don't actually know jack shit about politics. Who'd have thought! Fuck this book.