Category
- Discounted Books
- English Book Bundles
- University Magazines
- சிறுவர்களுக்கான புத்தகங்கள்
- Children Books
- English Books
- Current Affairs
- Military & Intelligence
- Short Stories
- Fiction
- Poetry
- Environment & Nature
- Science
- Medicine
- Linguistics
- Atheism & Agnosticism
- (Auto)Biography & Memoir
- Business & Management
- Creativity
- Economics
- Education & Research
- Health & Nutrition
- History
- Humor
- Love & Relationships
- Parenting
- Personal Development
- Personal Finance
- Philosophy
- Politics
- War
- Psychology
- Religion & Spirituality
- Society & Culture
- Sports
- Travel & Adventure
- Technology & the Future
- True Crime
- Women Empowerment
- தமிழ் Books
- Book Bundles ( தமிழ் )
- சட்டம்
- இயற்கை
- கட்டுரை
- கணிதம்
- பயணக்குறிப்புகள்
- விவசாயம்
- அரசியல்
- ஆரோக்கியம்
- உளவியல்
- புனைவு
- காதல் மற்றும் உறவு
- சமூகவியல்
- சுயசரிதைகள் மற்றும் நினைவுகள்
- சுயமுன்னேற்றம்
- தத்துவஞானம்
- தொழில்நுட்பம் & எதிர்காலம்
- பொருளாதாரம்
- போர்
- பணம்
- மதம் & ஆன்மீகம்
- வணிகம் & மேலாண்மை
- வரலாறு
- விஞ்ஞானம் & பிரபல அறிவியல்
- விளையாட்டு
- சினிமா
- கவிதைகள்
- குழந்தை வளர்ப்பு
- குற்றம்
- மருத்துவம்
- மொழி
Product categories
- Children Books
- Discounted Books
- English Book Bundles
- English Books
- (Auto)Biography & Memoir
- Atheism & Agnosticism
- Business & Management
- Creativity
- Current Affairs
- Economics
- Education & Research
- Environment & Nature
- Fiction
- Health & Nutrition
- History
- Humor
- Linguistics
- Love & Relationships
- Medicine
- Military & Intelligence
- Parenting
- Personal Development
- Personal Finance
- Philosophy
- Poetry
- Politics
- Psychology
- Religion & Spirituality
- Science
- Short Stories
- Society & Culture
- Sports
- Technology & the Future
- Travel & Adventure
- True Crime
- War
- Women Empowerment
- University Magazines
- சிறுவர்களுக்கான புத்தகங்கள்
- தமிழ் Books
- Book Bundles ( தமிழ் )
- அரசியல்
- ஆரோக்கியம்
- இயற்கை
- உளவியல்
- கட்டுரை
- கணிதம்
- கவிதைகள்
- காதல் மற்றும் உறவு
- குற்றம்
- குழந்தை வளர்ப்பு
- சட்டம்
- சமூகவியல்
- சினிமா
- சுயசரிதைகள் மற்றும் நினைவுகள்
- சுயமுன்னேற்றம்
- தத்துவஞானம்
- தொழில்நுட்பம் & எதிர்காலம்
- பணம்
- பயணக்குறிப்புகள்
- புனைவு
- பொருளாதாரம்
- போர்
- மதம் & ஆன்மீகம்
- மருத்துவம்
- மொழி
- வணிகம் & மேலாண்மை
- வரலாறு
- விஞ்ஞானம் & பிரபல அறிவியல்
- விளையாட்டு
- விவசாயம்
The War for Kindness: Building Empathy in a Fractured World
Rs. 2,990.00
Jamil Zaki
The War for Kindness by Jamil Zaki explores the science and psychology of empathy, its importance, and its effects on society. Zaki argues that empathy is not just a trait that some people possess, but a skill that can be learned and developed. By breaking down the assumptions about empathy, he provides insights on how empathy works, how it can be controlled and how to become a better empathiser. The book includes stories and examples from various fields, including medicine, social work, and politics, providing readers with a comprehensive understanding of empathy’s power and potential.
Out of stock
Notify me when stock available
About the Author
JAMIL ZAKI received his Ph.D. in psychology from Columbia University, and then conducted postdoctoral research at the Harvard University Center for Brain Sciences. He is now a Professor of Psychology at Stanford University and the Director of the Stanford Social Neuroscience Lab. His research focuses on the cognitive and neural bases of social behaviour, and in particular on how people understand each other’s emotions (empathic accuracy), why they conform to each other (social influence), and why they choose to help each other (altruism). His work on empathy has been well received in the academic community. He has published over 50 articles, spoken at about 100 conferences around the world, and received awards from organizations including the National Science Foundation, the Association for Psychological Science, the Society for Neuroscience, the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, and Harvard and Stanford Universities. He is also passionate about applying this research, and has joined forces with many people outside academia to help advise and test empathy-building interventions.
Book Specifications
Title: The War for Kindness: Building Empathy in a Fractured World
Author: Jamil Zaki
Language: English
Binding: Paperback
Pages: 272
Weight: 209g
Published Year: 2021
Publisher: Robinson
ISBN: 978-1472139344
Dimensions: 12.4 x 2.8 x 19.6 cm
Print size: Please feel free to drop us a message.
Related products
-
Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance
Rs. 2,990.00Rs. 2,490.00or 3 X Rs.830.00 withRead moreAngela Duckworth
- JP MORGAN’S BEST SUMMER READ OF 2016
- New York Times bestseller
- Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Nonfiction (2016)
In this instant New York Times bestseller, Angela Duckworth shows anyone striving to succeed that the secret to outstanding achievement is not talent, but a special blend of passion and persistence she calls “grit.” “Inspiration for non-geniuses everywhere” (People).
“Grit delves into the personal ingredients of great success. It’s worth reading…the gist is that talent and skill are less valuable than effort.” —Andrew Ross Sorkin, The New York Times
“It really isn’t talent but practice—along with passion—that makes perfect, explains psychologist Duckworth in this illuminating book. Inspiration for non-geniuses everywhere.” —People
“[Have] no doubt: Grit is great. It’s a lucid, informative, and entertaining review of the research Angela has assiduously conducted over the past decade or so. The book also includes suggestions on how to develop grit, and how we can help support grit in others. There are few people who wouldn’t learn something from this book.” —Scientific American (blog)
“Duckworth is the researcher most associated with the study and popularization of grit. And yet what I like about her new book, Grit, is the way she is pulling away from the narrow, joyless intonations of that word, and pointing us beyond the way many schools are now teaching it…Most important, she notes that the quality of our longing matters. Gritty people are resilient and hard working, sure. But they also, she writes, know in a very, very deep way what it is they want.” —David Brooks, New York Times
“Offers invaluable lessons to business leaders, parents, recruiters, and almost anyone who wishes to have a roadmap to achieve greater levels of success.” —Forbes
-
Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgement
Rs. 3,490.00or 3 X Rs.1,163.33 withRead moreDaniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony & Cass R. Sunstein
The Sunday Times bestseller
From the world-leaders in strategic thinking and the multi-million copy bestselling authors of Thinking Fast and Slow and Nudge, the next big book to change the way you think.
“The gold standard for a behavioral science book is to offer novel insights, rigorous evidence, engaging writing, and practical applications. It’s rare for a book to cover more than two of those bases, but Noise rounds all four—it’s a home run. Get ready for some of the world’s greatest minds to help you rethink how you evaluate people, make decisions, and solve problems.”―Adam Grant, author of Think Again and host of the TED podcast WorkLife
“Noise completes a trilogy that started with Thinking, Fast and Slow and Nudge. Together, they highlight what all leaders need to know to improve their own decisions, and more importantly, to improve decisions throughout their organizations. Noise reveals a critical lever for improving decisions, not captured in much of the existing behavioral economics literature. I encourage you to read Noise soon, before noise destroys more decisions in your organization.”―Max H. Bazerman, author of Better, Not Perfect
“The influence of Noise should be seismic, as it explores a fundamental yet grossly underestimated peril of human judgment. Deepening its must-read status, it provides accessible methods for reducing the decisional menace.”―Robert Cialdini, author of Influence and Pre-Suasion
“Choices matter. Unfortunately, many of the choices people make are fundamentally flawed by the presence of noise, the subject of this absolutely fascinating and essential book. It is deeply researched, thoughtful, and accessible. I began it with a sense of intrigue and concluded it with a sense of celebration. We can make better choices in business, politics, and our personal lives. This book lights the way.”―Rita McGrath, author of Seeing Around Corners
“Brilliant! Noise goes deep on an under-appreciated source of error in human judgment: randomness. The story of noise has lacked the charisma of the story of cognitive bias…until now. Kahneman, Sibony, and Sunstein bring noise to life, making a compelling case for why we should take random variation in human judgment as seriously as we do bias and offering practical solutions for reducing noise (and bias) in judgment.”
―Annie Duke, author of Thinking in Bets“Noise may be the most important book I’ve read in more than a decade. A genuinely new idea so exceedingly important you will immediately put it into practice. A masterpiece.”―Angela Duckworth, author of Grit
“In Noise, the authors brilliantly apply their unique and novel insights into the flaws in human judgment to every sphere of human endeavor: from moneyball coaches to central bankers to military commanders to heads of state. Noise is a masterful achievement and a landmark in the field of psychology.“―Philip E. Tetlock, coauthor of Superforecasting
“The earth has been so fully explored that scientists can’t possibly discover a previously unknown mammal the size of an elephant. The same could be said about the landscape of decision-making, yet Kahneman, Sibony, and Sunstein have discovered a problem as large as an elephant: noise. In this important book they show us why noise matters, why there’s so much more of it than we realize, and how to reduce it. Implementing their advice would give us more profitable businesses, healthier citizens, a fairer legal system, and happier lives.”―Jonathan Haidt, NYU Stern School of Business
“Noise is an absolutely brilliant investigation of a massive societal problem that has been hiding in plain sight.”―Steven Levitt, coauthor of Freakonomics
“A tour de force of scholarship and clear writing.”―New York Times
“Well-researched, convincing and practical book . . . written by the all-star team . . . The details and evidence will satisfy rigorous and demanding readers, as will the multiple viewpoints it offers on noise. Every academic, policymaker, leader and consultant ought to read this book. People with the power and persistence required to apply the insights in Noise will make more humane and fair decisions, save lives, and prevent time, money and talent from going to waste.”―Robert Sutton, Washington Post
“Compelling…A humbling lesson in inaccuracy.”―Financial Times
-
Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership Handbook of Silicon Valley’s Bill Campbell
Rs. 2,890.00Rs. 2,190.00or 3 X Rs.730.00 withRead moreEric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg & Alan Eagle
- THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
- THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
- THE WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER
‘Bill’s passion for innovation and teamwork was a gift to Apple and the world. Trillion Dollar Coach has captured his tireless spirit so future generations can learn from one of our industry’s greatest leaders’
-TIM COOK, CEO, Apple‘Bill shared his wisdom generously, expecting nothing back but the joy he got from teaching others. I was privileged to have him as my coach for several years. Many times since then, when asked for advice by others, I think of Bill and try to live up to the example he set.’
-SHERYL SANDBERG, COO, Facebook‘Whenever I saw Bill, he gave me great perspective about what really matters. At the end of the day, it’s the people in your life. Bill had such strong principles around community and how to bring people together. We used those principles – detailed in Trillion Dollar Coach – to form the foundation of Google’s leadership training, so all of our leaders can continue to learn from Bill.’
-SUNDAR PICHAI, CEO, Google‘Whenever I have a tough decision to make, I think about Bill Campbell. What would Bill do? I owe him so much. He had a gift for helping people to realize their full potential and getting organizations to work well together. Trillion Dollar Coach does a great job of capturing what made Bill special to me and many others.’
-SUSAN WOJCICKI, CEO, YouTube -
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Rs. 3,590.00or 3 X Rs.1,196.67 withRead moreYuval Noah Harari
- Royal Society of Biology General Book Prize Nominee (2015)
- **ONE OF THE GUARDIAN‘S 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21st CENTURY**
- **THE MULTI-MILLION COPY BESTSELLER**
- #1 New York Times Bestseller
- J. A. Hollon palkinto (2017)
- The Summer Reading Pick for President Barack Obama, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg.
“I would recommend this book to anyone interested in a fun, engaging look at early human history… You’ll have a hard time putting it down” –Bill Gates
Interesting and provocative… It gives you a sense of how briefly we’ve been on this Earth ― Barack Obama
Jaw-dropping from the first word to the last… It may be the best book I’ve ever read ― Chris Evans
Tackles the biggest questions of history and the modern world… Written in unforgettably vivid language ― Jared Diamond
Startling… It changes the way you look at the world ― Simon Mayo
One of the best books I’ve read recently… Gives an excellent overview of how our species has developed ― Lily Cole
Sweeps the cobwebs out of your brain… Radiates power and clarity, making the world strange and new ― Sunday Times
Sapiens is packed with heretical thinking and surprising facts. This riveting, myth-busting book cannot be summarised in any detail; you will simply have to read it — John Gray ― Financial Times
-
Zero to One: Notes on Start Ups, or How to Build the Future
Rs. 2,990.00Rs. 2,790.00or 3 X Rs.930.00 withRead morePeter Thiel
- #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
- Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Business Books (2014)
‘Peter Thiel has built multiple breakthrough companies, and Zero to One shows how.’ – Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla
‘This book delivers completely new and refreshing ideas on how to create value in the world.’ – Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook
‘When a risk taker writes a book, read it. In the case of Peter Thiel, read it twice. Or, to be safe, three times. This is a classic.’ – Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of The Black Swan
“Crisply written, rational and practical, Zero to One should be read not just by aspiring entrepreneurs but by anyone seeking a thoughtful alternative to the current pervasive gloom about the prospects for the world.”
– The Economist“An extended polemic against stagnation, convention, and uninspired thinking. What Thiel is after is the revitalization of imagination and invention writ large…”
– The New Republic
“Might be the best business book I’ve read…Barely 200 pages long and well lit by clear prose and pithy aphorisms, Thiel has written a perfectly tweetable treatise and a relentlessly thought-provoking handbook.”
– Derek Thompson, The Atlantic“ Zero to One is the first book any working or aspiring entrepreneur must read—period.”
– Marc Andreessen, co-creator of the world’s first web browser, co-founder of Netscape, and venture capitalist at Andreessen Horowitz“Zero to One is an important handbook to relentless improvement for big companies and beginning entrepreneurs alike. Read it, accept Peter’s challenge, and build a business beyond expectations.”
– Jeff Immelt, Chairman and CEO, GE“Thiel has drawn upon his wide-ranging and idiosyncratic readings in philosophy, history, economics, anthropology, and culture to become perhaps America’s leading public intellectual today”
– Fortune
“Peter Thiel, in addition to being an accomplished entrepreneur and investor, is also one of the leading public intellectuals of our time. Read this book to get your first glimpse of how and why that is true.”
– Tyler Cowen, New York Times best-selling author of Average is Over and Professor of Economics at George Mason University“The first and last business book anyone needs to read; a one in a world of zeroes.”
– Neal Stephenson, New York Times best-selling author of Snow Crash, the Baroque Cycle, and Cryptonomicon“Forceful and pungent in its treatment of conventional orthodoxies—a solid starting point for readers thinking about building a business.”
– Kirkus Reviews -
The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race
Rs. 2,690.00or 3 X Rs.896.67 withRead moreWalter Isaacson
“It is a gripping tale, showing how our new ability to hack evolution will soon start throwing us curveballs.” — New Scientist
“An extraordinary book that delves into one of the most path-breaking biological technologies of our times and the creators who helped birth it. This brilliant book is absolutely necessary reading for our era.” — Siddhartha Mukherjee
“A magisterial biography of the co-discoverer of what has been called the greatest advance in biology since the discovery of DNA… A diligent historian and researcher, Isaacson lucidly explains CRISPR and refuses to pass it off as a far-fetched magic show. Some scientific concepts (nuclear fission, evolution) are easy to grasp but not CRISPR. Using charts, analogies, and repeated warnings for readers to pay attention, the author describes a massively complicated operation in which humans can program heredity…A vital book about the next big thing in science—and yet another top-notch biography from Isaacson.” — Kirkus Reviews
“Isaacson depicts science at its most exhilarating in this lively biography of Jennifer Doudna, the winner of the 2020 Nobel Prize in medicine for her work on the CRISPR system of gene editing…The result is a gripping account of a great scientific advancement and of the dedicated scientists who realized it.” — Publisher’s Weekly
“He’s done it again. The Code Breaker is another Walter Isaacson must-read. This time he has a heroine who will be for the ages; a worldwide cast of remarkable, fiercely competitive scientists; and a string of discoveries that will change our lives far more than the iPhone did. The tale is gripping. The implications mind-blowing.” – Atul Gawande
“Now more than ever we should appreciate the beauty of nature and the importance of scientific research; This book and Jennifer Doudna’s career show how thrilling it can be to understand how life works.” —Sue Desmond-Hellmann
“Isaacson, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of best sellers Leonardo da Vinci and Steve Jobs, offers a startling, insightful look at this lifesaving, hugely significant scientific advancement and the brilliant Doudna, who wrestles with the serious moral questions that accompany her creation. Should this technology be offered to parents to tailor-make their babies into athletes or Einsteins? Who gets altered and saved and why?” — AARP
“Deftly written, conveying the history of CRISPR and also probing larger themes: the nature of discovery, the development of biotech, and the fine balance between competition and collaboration that drives many scientists.”— New York Review of Books
“Isaacson lays everything out with his usual lucid prose; it’s brisk and compelling and even funny throughout. You’ll walk away with a deeper understanding of both the science itself and how science gets done — including plenty of mischief.” – The Washington Post
“This story was always guaranteed to be a page-turner in [Isaacson’s] hands.” – The Guardian
“Isaacson captures the scientific process well, including the role of chance. The hard graft at the bench, the flashes of inspiration, the importance of conferences as cauldrons of creativity, the rivalry, sometimes friendly, sometimes less so, and the sense of common purpose are all conveyed in his narrative. The Code Breaker describes a dance to the music of time with these things as its steps, which began with Charles Darwin and Gregor Mendel and shows no sign of ending.” – The Economist
“Isaacson’s vivid account is a page-turning detective story and an indelible portrait of a revolutionary thinker who, as an adolescent in Hawai’i, was told that girls don’t do science. Nevertheless, she persisted.” — Oprah Magazine.com
“The Code Breaker is in some respects a journal of our 2020 plague year.”— The New York Times
“When a great biographer combines his own fascination with science and a superb narrative style, the result is magic. This important and powerful work, written in the tradition of The Double Helix, allows us not only to follow the story of a brilliant and inspired scientist as she engages in a fierce competitive race, but to experience for ourselves the wonders of nature and the joys of discovery.” —Doris Kearns Goodwin
“Walter Isaacson is our Renaissance biographer, a writer of unusual range and depth who has plumbed lives of genius to illuminate fundamental truths about human nature. From Leonardo to Steve Jobs, from Benjamin Franklin to Albert Einstein, Isaacson has given us an unparalleled canon of work that chronicles how we have come to live the way we do. Now, in a magnificent, compelling, and wholly original book, he turns his attention to the next frontier: that of gene editing and the role science may play in reshaping the nature of life itself. This is an urgent, sober, accessible, and altogether brilliant achievement.” —Jon Meacham
-
Life at the Speed of Light: From the Double Helix to the Dawn of Digital Life
Rs. 2,990.00or 3 X Rs.996.67 withRead moreJ. Craig Venter
“A dispatch from the front, urgent and engaged, as only a participant could write it, and the best of its genre since James D. Watson’s The Double Helix’ — Edward O. Wilson, University Research Professor Emeritus, Harvard University“A guide to the future of life from one of the scientists helping to create it’ — Washington Post
In his characteristically brash, lively book, Craig Venter gives us nature-as-computer… His vision is to code, debug and compile synthetic organisms that will make us and our environment healthier, more harmonious, better’ — Nathaniel Comfort, Nature
‘A landmark account’ — George Dyson, author of Turing’s Cathedral -
Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies
Rs. 2,690.00or 3 X Rs.896.67 withRead moreNick Bostrom
“I highly recommend this book” —Bill Gates
“Terribly important. Groundbreaking, extraordinary sagacity and clarity, enabling him to combine his wide-ranging knowledge over an impressively broad spectrum of disciplines – engineering, natural sciences, medicine, social sciences and philosophy – into a comprehensible whole. If this book gets the reception that it deserves, it may turn out the most important alarm bell since Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring from 1962, or ever.” —Olle Haggstrom, Professor of Mathematical Statistics
“Nick Bostrom’s excellent book “Superintelligence” is the best thing I’ve seen on this topic. It is well worth a read.” —Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator and Co-Chairman of OpenAI
“Worth reading. We need to be super careful with AI. Potentially more dangerous than nukes” —Elon Musk, Founder of SpaceX and Tesla
“Nick Bostrom makes a persuasive case that the future impact of AI is perhaps the most important issue the human race has ever faced. Instead of passively drifting, we need to steer a course. Superintelligence charts the submerged rocks of the future with unprecedented detail. It marks the beginning of a new era.” ––Stuart Russell, Professor of Computer Science, University of California, Berkley
“This superb analysis by one of the world’s clearest thinkers tackles one of humanity’s greatest challenges: if future superhuman artificial intelligence becomes the biggest event in human history, then how can we ensure that it doesn’t become the last?” —Professor Max Tegmark, MIT
“Valuable. The implications of introducing a second intelligent species onto Earth are far-reaching enough to deserve hard thinking” —The Economist“There is no doubting the force of [Bostrom’s] arguments. The problem is a research challenge worthy of the next generation’s best mathematical talent. Human civilisation is at stake.” —Clive Cookson, Financial Times
“Those disposed to dismiss an ‘AI takeover’ as science fiction may think again after reading this original and well-argued book.” —Martin Rees, Past President, Royal Society
“Every intelligent person should read it.” —Nils Nilsson, Artificial Intelligence Pioneer, Stanford University
-
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life
Rs. 3,390.00Rs. 3,190.00or 3 X Rs.1,063.33 withRead moreMark Manson
“Resilience, happiness and freedom come from knowing what to care about–and most importantly, what not to care about. This is a masterful, philosophical and practical book that will give readers the wisdom to be able to do just that.” — Ryan Holiday, New York Times bestselling author of The Obstacle is the Way and Ego is the Enemy
“Mark’s ability to dig deep and offer amazing, yet counter-intuitive, insight into the challenges of life makes him one of my favorite writers, and this book is his best work yet.” — Matt Kepnes, New York Times bestselling author of Travel the World on $50 a Day: Travel Cheaper, Longer, Smarter
“This book hits you like a much-needed slap in the face from your best friend: hilarious, vulgar, and immensely thought-provoking. Only read if you’re willing to set aside all excuses and take an active role in living a f***ing better life.” — Steve Kamb, bestselling author of Level Up Your Life and founder of NerdFitness.com
“The opposite of every other book. Don’t try. Give up. Be wrong. Lower your standards. Stop believing in yourself. Follow the pain. Each point is profoundly true, useful, and more powerful than the usual positivity. Succinct but surprisingly deep, I read it in one night.” — Derek Sivers, Founder of CD Baby and author of Anything You Want: 40 Lessons for a New Kind of Entrepreneur
“An in-your-face guide to living with integrity and finding happiness in sometimes-painful places… This book, full of counterintuitive suggestions that often make great sense, is a pleasure to read and worthy of rereading. A good yardstick by which self-improvement books should be measured.” — Kirkus Reviews
-
From Third World to First: The Singapore Story – 1965-2000
Rs. 3,990.00or 3 X Rs.1,330.00 withRead moreLee Kuan Yew
In this memoir, the man most responsible for Singapore’s astonishing transformation from colonial backwater to economic powerhouse describes how he did it over the last four decades. It’s a dramatic story, and Lee Kuan Yew has much to brag about. To take a single example: Singapore had a per-capita GDP of just $400 when he became prime minister in 1959. When he left office in 1990, it was $12,200 and rising. (At the time of this book’s writing, it was $22,000.) Much of this was accomplished through a unique mix of economic freedom and social control. Lee encouraged entrepreneurship, but also cracked down on liberties that most people in the West take for granted–chewing gum, for instance. It’s banned in Singapore because of “the problems caused by spent chewing gum inserted into keyholes and mailboxes and on elevator buttons.” If American politicians were to propose such a thing, they’d undoubtedly be run out of office. Lee, however, defends this and similar moves, such as strong antismoking laws and antispitting campaigns: “We would have been a grosser, ruder, cruder society had we not made these efforts to persuade people to change their ways…. It has made Singapore a more pleasant place to live in. If this is a ‘nanny state,’ I am proud to have fostered one.”
Lee also describes one of his most controversial proposals: tax breaks and schooling incentives to encourage educated men and women to marry each other and have children. “Our best women were not reproducing themselves because men who were their educational equals did not want to marry them…. This lopsided marriage and procreation pattern could not be allowed to remain unmentioned and unchecked,” writes Lee. Most of the book, however, is a chronicle of how Lee helped create so much material prosperity. Anticommunism is a strong theme throughout, and Lee comments broadly on international politics. He is cautiously friendly toward the United States, chastising it for a “dogmatic and evangelical” foreign policy that scolds other countries for human-rights violations, except when they interfere with American interests, “as in the oil-rich Arabian peninsula.” Even so, he writes, “the United States is still the most benign of all the great powers…. [and] all noncommunist countries in East Asia prefer America to be the dominant weight in the power balance of the region.” From Third World to First is not the most gripping book imaginable, but it is a vital document about a fascinating place in a time of profound transition. –John J. Miller