Gender and Discipline in 'The Singapore Story': The Chinese female factory workers in perspective, 1980 - 1990

In his conclusion to Rickshaw Coolie, James Warren underscores the intention of his book, which is to ‘bring back to Singapore’s own Chinese people and society, a singkeh coolie culture and history, which is, finally, their own – a People’s History (Warren 1986, 326).’ In the two decades since the publication of Rickshaw Coolie, Warren’s intentions have been echoed in a comparatively small but growing body of literature on Singapore’s history. But what is People’s History? What do such histories offer to the readers in the present especially with regard to past and existing trends in the practice of writing about Singapore's past?