From the mid-eighteenth until the mid-twentieth century, the tribal confederation of the `Anaza was a major political and military factor in the Syrian steppe. The Ottoman government and later the French Mandate administration tried to co-opt the leading `Anaza shaykhs in their effort to control the vast steppe lands and their inhabitants. Officials from both states had difficulties understanding the internal organization of the Bedouin tribes. Within the tribes, the knowledge of loyalty and legal provisions, which governed social and political life in the steppe, was memorized by specialists in genealogy and law. Usually, they were reluctant to reveal this knowledge to outsiders. Since the 1990s, however, authors from different Syrian `Anaza tribal groups published a number of books which present the oral tradition of their group to a wider public. Among these were collections of poetry, genealogical encyclopedias, works on Bedouin law, or historical accounts. Often, these subjects were intertwined and related to each other. What image of the tribe did the authors present to the public? Which motivations did they name for their literary production? The paper focuses on what was probably the first monograph devoted to the history of an `Anaza group in Syria, a history of the Hasana tribe, which was published in 1993. The author, Hasan al-Khudayr al-Muqbil, was a member of the Hasana and a retired lieutenant of the Syrian army. The paper first provides an overview of the book's content and form. It then compares the source to other recent publications on `Anaza groups in an attempt to describe general characteristics of the new and very productive genre of indigenous tribal histories.