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ABSTRACT
This article revisits the question of whether contemporary biography can be considered as history through a close examination of the political biographies (and autobiography) of Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew and the historiography of Singapore. According to the late British historian Benjamin Pimlott, widely respected for his contribution to the genre of political biography, it defies an easy answer. The answer remains complex and there is still no clear consensus. As Robert Jervis noted, however, “memoirs are as essential as they are misleading” (Jervis, 2013). For all its strengths and limitations, biography “is indispensable to understanding of motive and intention” and “the motives of individuals have some part to play in explaining historical events” (Pimlott, 1999). Through the historiography of Lee, this article also attempts to describe the on-going “history war” in modern Singapore history, between the dominant narrative promoted by the state and the alternative accounts. The master narrative is increasingly being challenged by the latter.
Notes
1. Most, if not all, of Lee’s books have been translated into the other three official languages of Singapore: Chinese, Malay and Tamil.
2. It is indeed difficult to disentangle Lee from Singapore history. I have thus included books that have “Lee Kuan Yew” in the title in which Lee is the principal protagonist. I have omitted two well-known books: Drysdale (Citation1984), which is very much a political history of Singapore in the 1950s and 1960s; and Yap, Lim, & Leong (Citation2009). Both books are notable for their access to government and party sources.
3. Toh Chin Chye was one of the founding members of the People’s Action Party (PAP) and also Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore (1965–68).
4. I wish to thank Mushahid Ali (former Singapore diplomat) for sharing his review with me. He wrote the review for a Ministry of Defence publication, National Pioneer, in 1969 or thereabouts. Email correspondence with Mushahid Ali, 10 March 2014.
5. Conversation with S. R. Nathan, 24 March 2014.
6. Lee Hsien Loong is the eldest son of Lee Kuan Yew.
7. Some would describe the exchange as an inquisition conducted by the Minister.
8. The FEER had disputes with the Singapore government from the 1980s. It was gazetted as a foreign newspaper and subsequently banned for, according to the Singapore government, interfering in domestic politics (see Agence France Presse, Citation2006).
9. Sandra Woodhull was one of those who attended the tea session. The Eden tea party episode is recounted in most books covering the political history of Singapore. See also Thum Ping Tjin’s “double” recount of it (Thum, Citation2016).
10. Email correspondence with T. J. S. George, 15 April 2014.
11. Email correspondence with T. J. S. George, 15 April 2014.
12. It is perhaps worth noting that Richard Lim described both books as hatchet jobs (Straits Times, Citation1997).
13. It won the President’s Prize from the Asian Studies Association of Australia in 1999 (ASAA, Citation2019).