Wright, Arthur . The Sui Dynastyy: The Unification of China AD 581-617. Knopf, 1978.  Good + in good + dust-jacket. Hardcover in dj. Octavo 237 pp 

"In A.D. 581 a North China warrior prince, Yang Chien, took the title Wen-ti and named his new dynasty the Sui. After the fall of the Han Dynasty nearly four centuries earlier, the vast Chinese state had fragmented; there was only a chaotic, tangled mass of ephemeral and constantly warring states. Wen-ti set forth to draw all of the Chinese world - 'all under Heaven' - together again. "