Lee’s Lieutenants: Singapore’s Old Guard (Revised edition)

Lee’s Lieutenants: Singapore’s Old Guard was a national non-fiction bestseller when it was first published in 1999. Now this seminal work is back in a Revised Edition, with a new Preface and Epilogue that sets the book in the context of the last nineteen years.


A classic in the historiography of the city-state, Lee’s Lieutenants argues that a sovereign and successful Singapore was not built by a single great leader but by a magnificent team; each a leader in his own right.


Across eight meticulously-argued chapters, filled with vivid photographs that capture key historical moments, leading scholars examine Singapore’s first generation leaders – affectionately and reverentially referred to as the Old Guard.


This Revised Edition reflects on the passing of most of the Old Guard and its implications for the contested Singapore Story. It also tells the story behind the book: its genesis, its controversy, how it became a national bestseller and its subsequent ‘mainstreaming’ in the Singapore Narrative.