Reassessing Lee Kuan Yew's Strategic Thought

Building on the author’s 2012 book, Lee Kuan Yew’s Strategic Thought, this new book presents a comprehensive overview of Lee Kuan Yew’s strategic thought over the course of his entire life. It analyses the factors underlying Lee Kuan Yew’s thinking, discusses his own writings and speeches, and shows how his thinking on foreign policy, security and international relations evolved. It also appraises writing about Lee Kuan Yew and memorialisation of him, assessing how views of his legacy have changed and continue to change.

"The book will interest academics and policymakers keen to understand Lee's strategic outlook and philosophy, which continue to inform Singapore's foreign policy today."

Narayanan Ganesan, Professor, Graduate School of Peace Studies, Hiroshima City University

"Ang Cheng Guan, Professor of the International History of Southeast Asia and Associate Dean of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, is effectively the dean of international historians in Singapore. He has sought in his scholarly work at large to underscore the global underpinnings of Southeast Asian affairs, thus helping to bring the region closer to academic interest and public reach everywhere. In this book, he casts the same discerning eye on Singapore as a part of Southeast Asia. The book is an expanded version of his seminal volume, Lee Kuan Yew’s Strategic Thought, published in 2013. Lee’s death in 2015, and yet the endurance of his strategic ideas, makes this updated book worth reading for even those familiar with its earlier incarnation. The book is timely also because it marks the centenary of Lee’s birth. It is a tribute paid to a person without whom contemporary Singapore might not have existed or might have survived without the instinctive global recognition that it commands today."

Asad Latif, Rising Asia Journal

"By consolidating Lee’s different public statements throughout his political life and classifying them according to the various strategic issues, the book provides an easy-to read resource for scholars of Singapore’s history or those who study Lee Kuan Yew specifically."

Abdul Rahman Yaacob, Lowy Institute

Ang Cheng Guan is Professor of the International History of Southeast Asia and Associate Dean of S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

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