Printed in Hong Kong and distributed by Chung Hwa Book Company (中华书局), these history textbooks were used by Chinese-medium high schools in Singapore in the 1950s and 1960s.While the titles of the textbooks can be translated as "Local History”( 本国史), its content of the three volumes covers the history of China in a chronological order from the ancient dynasties to the Republican period. This was not surprising considering that this series was first published in 1936, when the local Chinese community still staunchly regarded China as their motherland and “local” did not mean Singapore but China.Chung Hwa Book Company was founded in Shanghai in 1912 and established a branch in Singapore in 1923. It ended operations in 1997.
