The Suishu Jingji zhi and the Shitong are known as the most important and influential writings of historiography in the Sui-Tang period. Many genres of books on history appeared in medieval China, and we could say that Suishu Jinji-zhi and Shitong finally overviewed the total historical writings of pre-Sui period. Although two of them dealt with historical writings, their attitudes toward such writing were quite different. In this article, I would like to make clear that the Suishu Jingji-zhi paid much attention to pursuing the cultural origins of genres, on contrast the main concern of Liu Zhiji 劉知幾 in the Shitong was how to utilize the wide variety of genres in order to write his ideal official history.
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