Finished in 656 as part of a larger project, the ten ‘treatises’ (zhi) of the current History of Sui (Sui shu) provide us with histories of such fields of technical knowledge as astronomy, astrology, omenology, economics, law, geography, metrology, and library science covering the five divided and short-lived dynasties, 502–618 CE, that were the predecessors of the Tang. This edited volume brings together young experts in these fields to reflect upon the way that their history has been written, both by modern historians and their pre-modern counterparts going back down to the time in question. In writing histories from other histories from other histories, how much of one’s source’s or one’s own text does one recycle? How does the tension between tradition and innovation play out vis-à-vis a generic exemplar like the History of Han (Han shu)? How and what personal or professional vision does an author with contemporary stakes in some field impart upon its history? How is what the modern historian of such fields doing any different, and what alternatives might there be to break us from the loop of histories written from histories written from other histories according to models established in the first century of the Common Era?