Book excerpt: The International Symposium on the History of Machines and Mechanisms is the main activity of the Permanent Commission (PC) for the History of Mechanism and Machine Science (HMM) of the International Federation for the Promotion of Mechanism and Machine Science (IFToMM). The first symposium, HMM2000, was initiated by Dr. Marco Ceccarelli and was held at the University of Cassino (Cassino, Italy) on May 11–13, 2000. The second symposium, HMM2004, was chaired by Dr. Marco Ceccarelli and held at the same venue on May 12–15, 2004. The third symposium, HMM2008, was chaired by Dr. Hong-Sen Yan and held at the National Cheng Kung University (Tainan, Taiwan) on November 11–14, 2008. The mission of IFToMM is to promote research and development in the field of machines and mechanisms by theoretical and experimental methods, along with their practical applications. The aim of HMM2008 is to establish an international forum for presenting and discussing historical developments in the field of Mechanism and Machine Science (MMS). The subject area covers all aspects of the development of HMM, such as machine, mechanism, kinematics, design method, etc., that are related to people, events, objects, anything that assisted in the development of the HMM, and presented in the forms of reasoning and ar- ments, demonstration and identification, and description and evaluation.