Oral History: An Interdisciplinary Anthology

by David King Dunaway

Oral An Interdisciplinary Anthology is a collection of classic articles by some of the best known proponents of oral history, demonstrating the basics of oral history, while also acting as a guidebook for how to use it in research. Added to this new edition is insight into how oral history is practiced on an international scale, making this book an indispensable resource for scholars of history and social sciences, as well as those interested in oral history on the avocational level.
This volume is a reprint of the 1984 edition, with the added bonus of a new introduction by David Dunaway and a new section on how oral history is practiced on an international scale. Selections from the original volume trace the origins of oral history in the United States, provide insights on methodology and interpretation, and review the various approaches to oral history used by folklorists, historians, anthropologists, and librarians, among others. Family and ethnic historians will find chapters addressing the applications of oral history in those fields.

Genres: History, Oral History, Nonfiction

432 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1984

About the author

David King Dunaway received the first Ph.D. in American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, in folklore, history, and literature. For the last thirty years he has been documenting the life and work of Pete Seeger, resulting in How Can I Keep From Singing: Pete Seeger, published initially by McGraw Hill in 1981 and currently revised, updated, and republished by Villard Press at Random House in March, 2008. He has served as a visiting lecturer and Fulbright Scholar at the Universities of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Copenhagen University, Nairobi University, and the Universidad Nacional de Columbia. Author of a half dozen volumes of history and biography, his specialty is the presentation of folklore, literature, and history via broadcasting. Over the last decade he has been executive producer in a number of national radio series for Public Radio International; his reporting appears in NPRs Weekend Edition and All Things Considered. He is currently Professor of English at the University of New Mexico and Professor of Broadcasting at San Francisco State University. "

Reviews

[Meg · Rating 4 out of 5]

This anthology is really a fantastic resource for Humanities professionals working in public/non-profit spaces. academics would find a use for it too, but I certainly found it helpful for my work as a project coordinator coming from the field of folklore and working to bolster the archives of a history centered collection.

Perhaps my favorite essays were Alex Haley's and Willa Baum's. Alex Haley was just a fan-freaking-tastic writer and oral historian with a compelling talent for preserving other people on paper. Baum, on the other hand, writes more about methodology, but I have to admit that I'm a bit of a sucker for good field manuals.

There are some other really useful essays in this anthology that are as relevant today as when the first edition was published, but then there were some that I didn't love. In particular I did not like the last collection of essays that focused on oral history practice in different countries and regions. Not only was it rather irrelevant, but I though the way they chose what national practices to highlight was odd. It was very Eurocentric, but neglectful of most of Europe, and then there was no real discussion of oral history outside of western or Euro-colonized nations. I skipped the last few essays.