This article derives from a research programme investigating the role of teaching instruments in the educational relation. It selects as its focus the discourse of textbooks on the history of Brazil and, to sharpen its analysis of the content, it seeks to apprehend the interpretations of the War of the Triple Alliance (1864-1870). It prioritizes pioneering textbooks, produced in the imperial period, following the example of Lessons on the history of Brazil, by Joaquim Manuel de Macedo, one of the most important works on the subject used at the Pedro II College. With regard to their pedagogical conception and form of organization, these textbooks revealed an incipient simplification and objectification of educational work that denoted the first signs of technical organization of a manufacturing base
history of education; educational work; textbooks; history of Brazil; War of the Triple Alliance