A student of philosophy and history, I have had the good fortune of enjoying a career in government and, at the same time, in writing on public issues. With the Singapore Foreign Service from 1971 to 2004, I had postings in Cambodia (where I served during the war in 1973-74), Malaysia, Washington DC, and New York, where I served two stints as Singapore's Ambassador to the UN and as President of the UN Security Council in January 2001 and May 2002. I was Permanent Secretary at the Foreign Ministry from 1993 to 1998. Currently, I am Dean and Professor in the Practice of Public Policy at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (LKYSPP) of the National University of Singapore. I have written four books: "Can Asians Think?" (published and translated in Singapore, Canada, US, Mexico, India, China Myanmar, Turkey and Malaysia), "Beyond The Age Of Innocence: Rebuilding Trust between America and the World" (published and translated in the US and China), "The New Asian Hemisphere: the Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East" (published and translated in the US, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Egypt, China, Korea, Japan, Indonesia, Italy, Taiwan and Vietnam) and, most recently, "The Great Convergence: Asia, the West, and the Logic of One World," (published in the US with forthcoming Dutch and Chinese editions). More information on my writings can be found on www.mahbubani.net.