The academic field of administrative law deals above all with the legal framework currently underlying today’s public administration. And yet its literature also touches on history, be it that of public administration or administrative law. This article takes a metahistorical approach, investigating the motives behind the field’s interest in history and the narrative traditions it follows. Finally, it seeks to answer the question of why scholars of law should play a part in writing administrative history.     About the Author   Benjamin Schindler, Dr. iur. (Zurich), MJur (Oxford) is Professor of Public Law at the University of St. Gallen (Switzerland). His main interests include administrative and constitutional law from a comparative and historical perspective. In 2012 he was appointed deputy judge of the Constitutional Court of Liechtenstein.