The Oral History Reader

This greatly anticipated update of The Oral History Reader is a comprehensive, international anthology of major, ‘classic’ articles and cutting-edge pieces on the theory, method and use of oral history.

This wide-ranging volume illustrates similarities and differences in oral history from around the world, including examples from North and South America, Britain and Europe, Australasia, Asia and Africa. It also details the subjects – such as women's history, family history, gay and lesbian history, ethnic history and disability history – to which oral history has made a significant contribution.

This second edition is arranged into five thematic sections. The collection details issues in the theory and practice of oral history and covers influential debates in its development over the past sixty years. New chapters include:

• interview methods and the oral history relationship
• the use of testimony in truth and reconciliation politics
• memory and interpretation
• the digital revolution and new technologies for the creation, use and dissemination of oral history
• community oral history projects
• memory and history.

The Oral History Reader is an essential tool for all students of modern history, memory studies, sociology, anthropology, media studies, cultural and heritage studies, gerontology and archives, library and information studies.

Robert Perks is Curator of Oral History at the British Library Sound Archive and Director of the National Life Story Collection. His publications include Ukraine's Forbidden History (1998) and Oral History, Health and Welfare (Routledge, 2000).
Alistair Thomson is a Reader in Continuing Education and History at the Centre for Continuing Education, University of Sussex. His publications include Anzac Memories (1994) and Ten Pound Poms: Australia's Invisible Migrants (2005). They are both editors of Oral History: The Journal of the Oral History Society.