Singapore: Struggle for Success is the definitive account of the events that resurrected Singapore—events that continue to shape the life of every Singaporean. Within a single generation Singaporeans underwent an extraordinary transformation. During three decades of violence and instability, Singapore was nearly torn apart by foreign occupation, political upheaval and communist urban revolution. Yet today this island state is a haven of tranquility and one of the most prosperous nations in Asia. How Lee Kuan Yew and his political colleagues persuaded the British government in the 1950s to take a gamble with home rule; how they outwitted the Communist in the 1960s; how they transformed an underdeveloped, disparate Chinese, Malay, Indian and Caucasian community from a state of poverty and political unrest into a thriving, modern nation of the 1990s—this is the theme of this meticulously researched and very readable work. Explaining Singapore’s transformation, the author describes the dramatic events that brought about the very best and the very worst in the leading personalities of the time: honour and treachery, courage and cowardice, selflessness and venality.
