The thin field of Lee Kuan Yew biographies is apparently going to get a new entry by columnist Tom Plate.  Regrettably, it seems highly unlikely to punch harder than a newborn kitten, as it will be published by Singaporean company Marshall Cavendish in the “Giants of Asia” series, and Plate’s previous book is full of this:

Lee had built a top government team that single-handedly transformed impoverished Singapore, which was abandoned a half century ago as a lost cause by the ever-pragmatic British, into one of the most impressive little places in the world. …

The Singapore cabinet invariably fields a team whose collective IQ is at least equal to that of all its neighbors’ combined …

Who was this man – so glibly portrayed in the US media as some kind of political control freak, as nothing more than a ‘soft authoritarian’ – who managed to engineer one of the most remarkable national development success stories in the post-war history of nation-building? The answer turned out to be anything but a disappointment.  … Singapore’s founding prime minister laid out his views for nearly two pleasant but intense hours, replying to every one of my questions with astonishing precision, careful thoughtfulness and a charming British lilt …

I left the interview convinced that Lee Kuan Yew — love him or hate him — had an exceptional mind and steely will.