Singapore's lessons for other developing countries have yet to be fully appreciated. When Lee Kuan Yew took over as Prime Minister in 1959, Singapore's annual per capital income was $400 and is now estimated at about $60,000. His central message is that history can repeat itself in a positive way if the world community pays attention to contemporary lessons. This is a contemporary account of Lee Kuan Yew's thinking as told through a series of interviews. This is the central message in the newly released book, Lee Kuan Yew: The Grand Master's Insights on China, the United States, and the World, by Graham Allison and Robert Blackwill, with Ali Wyne. But contemporary history, if genuine presented, can offer policy makers with lessons they can learn from. Part of the problem is that history is handed down through a variety of interpretations that do not reflect reality. The question of whether nations can learn from history nag policymakers around the world. George Bernard Shaw captured this when he said: "If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience." When history is said to repeat itself, it is never for good reasons.
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