Kishore Mahbubani, "Living the Asian Century: An Undiplomatic Memoir" (Public Affairs, 2024)

Asian Review of Books · Feb 27, 2025 · 37m

Kishore Mahbubani, longtime Singaporean diplomat and academic, opens his new memoir with a provocative line: “Blame it on the damn British.” Kishore, who later served as Singapore’s ambassador to the UN and founding dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, was born to poor migrants in Singapore, studied philosophy on a government scholarship—and from there, somehow got roped into the foreign service.

Kishore was one of the first guests on the show when he joined to speak on Has China Won?: The Chinese Challenge to American Primacy (PublicAffiars: 2020) all the way back in October…