BEIJING -- About 1 million copies have been sold of a new book on the history of the Communist Party of China (CPC) since being published on January 11, said a statement Thursday.

The sales are the highest among books on CPC history and are expected to further increase, said the statement from the Party History Research Center of the CPC Central Committee, which is in charge of writing the book.

The book, focusing on the 1949-1978 period, came 20 years after the first book, which documented the history from the birth of the CPC in 1921 to the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949.

The statement attributed the large distribution to the increasing desire among the public to know about CPC history, especially this year, which is the 90th anniversary of its founding.

The first book was reprinted at the same time and has sold about 766,000 copies, the statement said.