University of California Press
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The Voice of the Past: Oral History by Paul Thompson with Joanna Bornat. 4th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017. vii+484 pp.; notes, bibliography, appendix, index; clothbound, $105.00; paperbound $39.95: eBook, $26.99.

Oxford University Press’s publication of the fourth edition of The Voice of the People, nearly forty years after its first appearance and seventeen years since the last edition, marks a major milestone in oral history. The first edition challenged the preconceptions of both oral historians and their skeptics. Paul Thompson helped prod the field in new directions and open it to other disciplines. This edition is a testimonial to the upheavals its predecessor volumes stimulated. As the most obvious measure of those changes, the new book is almost double the length of the original.

A pioneer in oral history, Paul Thompson is now emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Essex. For this edition, he has partnered with Joanna Bornat, emeritus professor of oral history at the Open University in Great Britain. Both have edited the well-regarded journal of the British Oral History Society, Oral History, and both are keenly aware of the developments in the field. This [End Page 178] edition also carries an overview of oral history theory by the astute analyst Lynne Abrams.

The first version of The Voice of the People was terser, more argumentative, and more provocative. Now that so many of the battles have been won, the authors can step back to examine how oral evidence has reshaped our understanding of the past. Rather than having to encourage scholars to take oral evidence seriously, as was once needed, here Thompson and Bornat document how vigorously other disciplines have adopted the methodology. Although a few of the more hidebound opponents may continue to object, the debate has shifted from whether to use oral history to how best to use it. Where the first book drew heavily from British examples, and highlighted differences between western European practices and those in the United States, the new version provides a dazzling world tour, sifting through a vast accumulation of oral history literature across the globe.

In addition to having been the first serious methodological interpretation of oral history, The Voice of the People emphasizes the social purposes of scholarly interviewing. It argued then and now that history should not merely comfort, but should provide an understanding that leads to action, and ultimately, help “change the world” (21). The authors acknowledge that in the original edition this sentiment mirrored the spirit of idealism within the oral history movement in the 1970s, but even with their expanded focus on many different issues, they insist, “the search for social justice remains central to our work” (vii).

In fact, it was that social objective that initially rankled some of the earliest American oral historians. In the United States, oral history programs were initially concentrated in a few large university-based archives, patterned after Columbia University’s oral history research office, which Allan Nevins started in 1948. The Columbia University model promoted interviewing prominent individuals in government, business, the military, and other upper-echelon fields—paralleling the “top-down” approach that then prevailed in the history profession. Thompson had been schooled in the “bottom-up” European social history approach, in which individual scholars interviewed persons previously omitted from national narratives. They concentrated on publishing books rather than collecting archives.

What was then a clash of diametrically opposite viewpoints has subsequently meshed into a commonly accepted whole. Europeans have been interviewing the political and business leaders that fascinated Nevins, from the North Sea oil and gas operations to the Cadbury candy company and notably in Thompson’s City Lives project that studied British investment bankers. European oral historians have also turned more attention to archiving oral histories. Thompson, for instance, initiated the massive British Lives oral history project, housed at the British Library. American oral historians meanwhile embraced social history and social sciences, symbolized by Columbia University’s extensive 9/11 Oral History Project, which has interviewed a cross-section of survivors, first responders, and [End Page 179] others affected by that disaster. As these examples show, oral historians can apply the methods to either approach. Projects work best when they include a wide range of interviewees, collecting varying memories and perspectives.

In the fourth edition, the authors identify new issues that have emerged over the past four decades, particularly those dealing with memory studies and how people present themselves in their personal stories. They note that our general understanding of memory has grown subtler, shifting away from a preoccupation with establishing an objective reliability to realizing that people’s reshaping of what they remember offers telling clues for scholarly analysis. Indeed, oral history has prompted a general awareness that subjective perception shapes all historical evidence. The authors weigh the problem of hearing confused stories, when individuals and communities might combine separate events into one, or when interviewees offer their own “personal truths” that may not coincide with reality. They compare oral history interviewing with psychoanalysis and family therapy and devote attention to the effects of traumatic memory, post-traumatic stress, and other issues related to telling painful stories. They consider the application of oral history to “reminiscence therapy” among older people and its connection to the life-review interview. They discuss the impact of race, gender, and social class on the interview relationship. Collectively, these issues provide a greater understanding of how the basic one-on-one interaction of an interview influences both the interviewer and interviewee and shapes the results.

The essence of oral history is to record those in the present as they remember and reflect on the past. Successful interviewing requires a multitude of skills, from conducting advance research to mastering the equipment, setting the right environment, and demonstrating an empathy that fosters trust and candor. Oral history also demands an acute sensitivity to ethical issues to avoid harming interviewees during the interview or in its subsequent uses. The Voice of the People provides clear guidance for each step of the oral history process, cautioning interviewers to remain aware of their responsibilities. The book promises that the results will be worth the effort. Collecting and using oral evidence has transformed the “objects” of study into “subjects,” making “for a history which is not just richer, more vivid, and more heart-rending, but truer” (187).

Archiving was more of an afterthought in the original book, compressed into a chapter about “Storing and Sifting.” The current volume shows greater awareness of the need for the professional preservation of recordings, now that the digital era has made it clear that no storage system can be trusted as permanent. Similarly, this edition is more attuned to the thorny legal issues involved in depositing interviews in an archive for future use.

Although the authors devote scant attention to public history, their evaluations of oral history sources and the ways that people try to understand and explain the enormous changes that have occurred during their own lifetimes parallel the concerns of public historians. With so many public history programs relying on oral history for preserving the past and presenting it to modern audiences—as archives, [End Page 180] and through documentaries, museum exhibits, audio tours, and other creative applications—the advice and admonitions in this volume will assist projects of any scope and purpose.

Anyone seeking to trace the dramatic evolution and international impact of oral history in our times will find The Voice of the Past a most beneficial guide.

Donald A. Ritchie
United States Senate Historian Emeritus

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