किशोर महबूबानी Kishore Mahbubani
Books
Living the Asian Century: An Undiplomatic Memoir (2024)
PublicAffairs. His own life, from a poor Sindhi immigrant household in post-war Singapore through scholarship and diplomacy, mentored by Lee Kuan Yew among others, to the UN and the Security Council chair. He tells it alongside the story of Asia’s rise from colonial poverty. The Asian Review of Books found it eminently readable and sharp on Singapore’s social and political world, but felt it passed lightly over his China commentary, his 2017 retirement and his dissent from Singapore’s foreign policy establishment.
Asian Review of Books, 13 Nov 2024
Has China Won?: The Chinese Challenge to American Primacy (2020)
PublicAffairs. Argues that America walked into a contest with China without a strategy, that China has no wish to export its system, and that both countries would gain from understanding and respecting each other. Reviewers called it provocative and worth reading. Some also said it rests on questionable claims, for example that China is more capitalist than America, and pays too little attention to China’s own economic problems.
John West, Australian Institute of International Affairs, 10 May 2021
The Asian 21st Century (2022)
Springer (open access). Essays arguing that the West must accept it is no longer dominant, that Asia is returning to the centre largely through China’s peaceful rise, and that COVID-19 and climate change demand a world order built for cooperation. Free to read online.
NUS Asia Research Institute · Springer (open access)
Has the West Lost It?: A Provocation (2018)
Penguin. A short book telling the West that its era of dominance is ending and that the wise course is to admit it, intervene less and plan for the long term. Critics such as David Hutt in Asia Times said it generalises about the West and the rest, and goes easy on problems in China and Asia.
David Hutt, Asia Times, 17 Jun 2018
The ASEAN Miracle: A Catalyst for Peace (2017)
Ridge Books. Written with Jeffery Sng. The case that ASEAN quietly kept the peace in a once war-torn region.
Can Singapore Survive? (2015)
Straits Times Press. Essays on the fragility of a small city-state.
The Great Convergence: Asia, the West, and the Logic of One World (2013)
PublicAffairs. The world is converging on modern ways of living, and that common ground calls for stronger global institutions. Named by the Financial Times as one of the best economics books of 2013.
Zurich Insurance Group board biography
The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East (2008)
PublicAffairs. The book that made his name with a wide audience: power is moving east, and the West should share it rather than resist.
Beyond the Age of Innocence: Rebuilding Trust Between America and the World (2005)
PublicAffairs. A friend’s critique of how America lost the world’s trust after the Cold War.
Can Asians Think? (2001)
Times Editions; Steerforth. His first collection of essays on the divide between East and West, taking its title from his much-debated 1998 essay.
Can Asians Think of Peace? (2025)
Springer. Co-edited with Varigonda Kesava Chandra and Kristen Tang.
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