Tom Plate: 10 books

For almost two decades, the columns of journalist Tom Plate have been featured in leading newspapers of the world and have focused entirely on one gigantic subject — the dynamic rise of Asia. Now, for the first time, the best of these columns has been organized into a substantial anthology, annotated...

The third of the “Tom Plate on Asia” series, Yo-Yo Diplomacy compiles the compelling and insightful columns on Asia by award-winning journalist Tom Plate over the past two years. From tensions in the South China Sea to China’s stock market turbulence and Hong Kong’s bookseller saga, the veteran...

Going home is an iconic theme of literature and music that touches everyone’s heart. Bur rarely has that journey looked more like an impossible dream than for Thaksin Shinawatra, the much loved and much hated former prime minister of Thailand. Expelled from the former Siam by a military coup in...

Only eight people have been privileged to hold the job of Secretary General since the United Nations’ founding in 1945. And only one of them has ever told the inside story of the UN while still holding that special office. That man is Ban Ki-moon, the veteran diplomat and former star foreign minister...

Political genius is never without controversy, or without mystery. This is what makes it so interesting and so rare. Is Lee Kuan Yew the feral, authoritarian figure that Western critics claim? Or a stoic pioneer in new approaches to developing a nation—uncorrupt, modern, almost scientific? American...

Lee Kuan Yew was anything but a coaster, giving it all he had until the very end. And when his long and exceptional life came to its natural end in March 2015, at 91, the outpouring of respect was worldwide. This man, whatever his faults, had been a giant of his time. Over a few decades, he led the...

For decades veteran journalist Tom Plate, the author of the ‘Giants of Asia’ series, has been engineering headline-making interviews with presidents to prime ministers to mob figures. Some were easy to deal with; others were complicated challenges.

The best journalism tackles the really tough questions! Was the U.S. asleep when China was waking up? Or was its engagement too timid? Will Washington find conflict with Beijing unavoidable? Or has the U.S. policy of engagement and accommodation been the best way to go? Award-winning journalist and...

He began his professional career as a family physician but wound up prescribing innovative political medicines for the entire nation that remain controversial even today. Was he exactly the bold and fearless policy doctor that the troubled body politic of Malaysia needed? Or was he just another mendacious...

For better or for worse, the news media in the United States has huge worldwide influence. And yet little is actually known about its real inner workings, inherent logic and deeply embedded customs.