Between 1969 and 1998, over 4,000 people lost their lives in the small country of Northern Ireland. The vast majority of these deaths were sectarian in nature and involved ordinary civilians, killed by the various paramilitary groups. These organisations murdered freely and without remorse, considering life a cheap price to pay in the furtherance of their cause. The words 'Why us?' were uttered by many families whose lives were ripped asunder by The Troubles. Thousands of innocents received a life sentence at the hands of the terrorists; these, then, are their words, the words of those who survived such attacks, and of those left behind. These poignant and tragic stories come from the people who have been forced to live with the emotional shrapnel of terrorism.

Although historians today turn increasingly to oral tradition as a source of data on the history of non-literate peoples, Paul Irwin cautions them against uncritical use of such evidence. In an attempt to determine how much historians can learn about the past from oral traditions, he studies those of Liptako, now a part of Upper Volta hut in the nineteenth century an emirate in one of West Africa's great imperial systems. Originally published in 1981. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

What were the experiences of those in Africa who suffered from the practice of slavery, those who found themselves captured and sold from person to person, those who died on the trails, those who were forced to live in fear? And what of those Africans who profited from the slave trade and slavery? What were their perspectives? How do we access any of these experiences and views? This volume explores diverse sources such as oral testimonies, possession rituals, Arabic language sources, European missionary, administrative and court records and African intellectual writings to discover what they can tell us about slavery and the slave trade in Africa. Also discussed are the methodologies that can be used to uncover the often hidden experiences of Africans embedded in these sources. This book will be invaluable for students and researchers interested in the history of slavery, the slave trade and post-slavery in Africa.

""Winter Soldiers "is an immensely valuable contribution to the history of the Vietnam War. It brings to life, through the words of the veterans themselves, the journey each individual made, through the crucible of combat, from warrior to protester."--Howard Zinn

"Stacewicz has captured the simple, rough-hewn elegance of the voices of Vietnam veterans. As in other wars, the ordinary soldier always has the most extraordinary words for history."--Stanley Kutler, editor of "The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War"

"By turns irreverent and painfully sincere, "Winter Soldiers "will transform stereotyped views of both veterans and the antiwar movement."--Marilyn Young

The Vietnam War left an indelible mark on those who took part in it and spawned an antiwar movement more popular than any other in US history. In all that has been written about the war, rarely do the worlds of the Vietnam veteran and the antiwar demonstrator come together. Yet in a small but articulate organization known as the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), the two made common cause.

"Winter Soldiers "recovers this moving chapter in the history of the Vietnam War era. Bringing together the voices of more than thirty former and current members of the VVAW, oral historian Richard Stacewicz offers an eloquent account of the impact of the war on the lives of individuals and the nation.

Richard Stacewicz teaches history at Oakton Community College in Des Plaines, Illinois.

Travelling showfolk have been entertaining Scots for centuries and a visit to 'the shows' was a highlight of the year until recent memory. The Codonas are one of the longest and most established show families, having arrived from the continent in the late eighteenth century. The book is based almost entirely on original research and draws on interviews with three generations to give a vivid and richly anecdotal account of this ever-changing world. Illustrations, mostly previously unpublished, enhance the text. The interviews have been kept intact as much as possible, to keep the flow of overlapping individual life stories but are organised chronologically from the 1890s, when it enters living memory, up to the present. The hundred years from 1790 are described in a lively introduction including many first-hand accounts and following the family fortunes in the United Kingdom, the United States where members reached the top of the circus profession and as far afield as Hawaii.

A primary mode for the creation and dissemination of poetry in Renaissance Italy was the oral practice of singing and improvising verse to the accompaniment of a stringed instrument. Singing to the Lyre is the first comprehensive study of this ubiquitous practice, which was cultivated by performers ranging from popes, princes, and many artists, to professionals of both mercantile and humanist background. Common to all was a strong degree of mixed orality based on a synergy between writing and the oral operations of memory, improvisation, and performance. As a cultural practice deeply rooted in language and supported by ancient precedent, cantare ad lyram (singing to the lyre) is also a reflection of Renaissance cultural priorities, including the status of vernacular poetry, the study and practice of rhetoric, the oral foundations of humanist education, and the performative culture of the courts reflected in theatrical presentations and Castiglione's Il cortegiano.

Drawn from the rich archives of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, this collection brings together twenty-nine oral histories from people of varying ages and occupations who participated in civil rights activism at the grassroots level. These highly personal narratives convey the real sense of fear and the risk of bodily danger people had to overcome in order to become the movement's foot soldiers. The stories offer testimony as to how policing was carried out when there were no cameras, how economic terrorism was used against activists, how experiences of the movement differed depending on gender, and how youth participation was fundamental to the cause. Participants in the struggle ranged from teachers, students of all ages, and domestic workers to elderly women and men, war veterans, and a Black Panther leader. This volume demonstrates the complexity and diversity of the spirit of resistance at a formative moment in American history.

The Horrific Tragedies of Central Africa in the 1990s riveted the attention of the world. But these crises did not occur in a historical vacuum. By peering through the mists of the past, David Newbury presents case studies illustrating the significant advances in our understanding of the precolonial histories of Rwanda, Burundi, and eastern Congo that have taken place since decolonization. Based on both oral and written sources, the essays compiled in ""The Land beyond the Mists"" are important both for their methods - viewing history from the perspective of local actors - and for their conclusions, which seriously challenge colonial myths about the area.

During the Vietnam War, the US Air Force secretly trained pilots from Laos, skirting Lao neutrality in order to bolster the Royal Lao Air Force and their own war efforts. Beginning in 1964, this covert project, "Water Pump," operated out of Udorn Airbase in Thailand with the support of the CIA. This Secret War required recruits from Vietnam-border region willing to take great risks-a demand that was met by the marginalized Hmong ethnic minority. Soon, dozens of Hmong men were training at Water Pump and providing air support to the US-sponsored clandestine army in Laos. Short and problematic training that resulted in varied skill levels, ground fire, dangerous topography, bad weather conditions, and poor aircraft quality, however, led to a nearly 50 percent casualty rate, and those pilots who survived mostly sought refuge in the United States after the war. Drawing from numerous oral history interviews, Fly Until You Die brings their stories to light for the first time-in the words of those who lived it.

This is a work of 11 self-contained chapters, one for each day of September before the attack on the World Trade Center in New York, each containing one woman's story. The chapters reflect the broadest spectrum of women in order to reflect, by their differences, the worlds they inhabited and how the attack on 11 September affected their lives. Despite national and international policies aimed at securing equality for women, the sad fact is that throughout the world women have achieved at best an uneven and insecure equality, and in the case of Afghanistan no equality at all. With a new political and social order promised in Afghanistan, dare we hope that the situation will improve? Christopher Hilton has interviewed 11 very different women, some from the West, some from Afghanistan, to find out what the lives of women involved in the dramatic events of 11 September 2001 were like and how the attack changed their lives. In the stories that emerge we hear the voices of women whose ordinary loves were suddenly changed and who became actors in some of the most far-reaching events of the modern world.

From the headlines of local newspapers to the coverage of major media outlets, scenes of war, natural disaster, political revolution and ethnic repression greet readers and viewers at every turn. What we often fail to grasp, however, despite numerous treatments of events is the deep meaning and broader significance of crisis and disaster. The complexity and texture of these situations are most evident in the broader personal stories of those whom the events impact most intimately. Oral history, with its focus on listening and collaborative creation with participants, has emerged as a forceful approach to exploring the human experience of crisis. Despite the recent growth of crisis oral history fieldwork, there has been little formal discussion of the process and meaning of utilizing oral history in these environments. Oral history research takes on special dimensions when working in highly charged situations often in close proximity to traumatic events. The emergent inclination for oral historians to respond to document crisis calls for a shared conversation among scholars as to what we have learned from crisis work so far. This dialogue, at the heart of this collection of oral history excerpts and essays, reveals new layers of the work of the oral historian. From the perspective of crisis and disaster oral history, the book addresses both the ways in which we think about the craft of oral hsitory, and the manner in which we use it. The book presents excerpts from oral histories done after twelve world crises, followed by critical analyses by the interviewers. Additional analytical chapters set the interviews in the contexts of pyschoanalysis and oral history methodology.

This text examines the forces - both destructive and dynamic - which have shaped 20th-century South Africa. The book draws on the rich and lively tradition of radical history writing on the country and weaves economic and cultural history into the political narrative.

Apartheid and industrialization, especially mining, are central themes, along with the rise of nationalism in the Afrikaner and African communities. But the author also emphasizes the neglected significance of rural experiences and local identities in shaping political consciousness. The roles played by such key figure as Smuts, Verwoerd, de Klerk, Plaatje, and Mandela are explored, while historiographical trends are reflected in analyses of rural protest, white cultural politics, the vitality of black urban life, and environmental decay.

The book assesses the analysis of black reactions to apartheid and the rise of the ANC.

Donald Raleigh's Soviet Baby Boomers traces the collapse of the Soviet Union and the transformation of Russia into a modern, highly literate, urban society through the fascinating life stories of the country's first post-World War II, Cold War generation. For this book, Raleigh has interviewed sixty 1967 graduates of two "magnet" secondary schools that offered intensive instruction in English, one in Moscow and one in provincial Saratov. Part of the generation that began school the year the country launched Sputnik into space, they grew up during the Cold War, but in a Soviet Union increasingly distanced from the excesses of Stalinism. In this post-Stalin era, the Soviet leadership dismantled the Gulag, ruled without terror, promoted consumerism, and began to open itself to an outside world still fearful of Communism. Raleigh is one of the first scholars of post-1945 Soviet history to draw extensively on oral history, a particularly useful approach in studying a country where the boundaries between public and private life remained porous and the state sought to peer into every corner of people's lives. During and after the dissolution of the USSR, Russian citizens began openly talking about their past, trying to make sense of it, and Raleigh has made the most of this new forthrightness. He has created an extraordinarily rich composite narrative and embedded it in larger historical narratives of Cold War, de-Stalinization, "overtaking" America, opening up to the outside world, economic stagnation, dissent, emigration, the transition to a market economy, the transformation of class, ethnic, and gender relations, and globalization. Including rare photographs of daily life in Cold War Russia, Soviet Baby Boomers offers an intimate portrait of a generation that has remained largely faceless until now.

In Myth, Ritual and the Oral Jack Goody, one of the world's most distinguished anthropologists, returns to the related themes of myth, orality and literacy, subjects that have long been a touchstone in anthropological thinking. Combining classic papers with recent unpublished work, this volume brings together some of the most important essays written on these themes in the past half century, representative of a lifetime of critical engagement and research. In characteristically clear and accessible style, Jack Goody addresses fundamental conceptual schemes underpinning modern anthropology, providing potent critiques of current theoretical trends. Drawing upon his highly influential work on the LoDagaa myth of the Bagre, Goody challenges structuralist and functionalist interpretations of oral 'literature', stressing the issues of variation, imagination and creativity, and the problems of methodology and analysis. These insightful, and at times provocative, essays will stimulate fresh debate and prove invaluable to students and teachers of social anthropology.

"The editors... must be congratulated... Long live the African storytellers " Africa Today

"It is difficult to imagine a more practical introduction to contemporary African epic than this anthology... no other single volume comprehends the full scope of African epic (as opposed to praise poetry) the way this one does.... The stories are engaging, and the free-verse translations are surprisingly readable.... Recommended for all academic collections." Choice

Western culture traces its literary heritage to such well-known epics as the Iliad and the Odyssey and Gilgamesh. But it is only recently that scholars have turned their attention toward capturing the rich oral tradition that is still alive in Africa today. These 25 selections introduce English-speaking readers to the extensive epic traditions in Africa."

Wednesday 12th June 1940. The Times reported 'thousands upon thousands of Parisians leaving the capital by every possible means, preferring to abandon home and property rather than risk even temporary Nazi domination'. As Hitler's victorious armies approached Paris, the French government abandoned the city and its people, leaving behind them an atmosphere of panic. Roads heading south filled with ordinary people fleeing for their lives with whatever personal possessions they could carry, often with no particular destination in mind. During the long, hard journey, this mass exodus of predominantly women, children, and the elderly, would face constant bombings, machine gun attacks, and even starvation. Using eyewitness accounts, memoirs, and diaries, Hanna Diamond shows how the disruption this exodus brought to the lives of civilians and soldiers alike made it a defining experience of the war for the French people. As traumatized populations returned home, preoccupied by the desire for safety and bewildered by the unexpected turn of events, they put their faith in Marshall Petain who was able to establish his collaborative Vichy regime largely unopposed, while the Germans consolidated their occupation. Watching events unfold on the other side of the channel, British ministers looked on with increasing horror, terrified that Britain could be next.

Hollywood: The Oral History covers the history of Hollywood from the Silent era up to the 21st century. What makes this book unique from any other survey of Hollywood's history is that it is the history of an art form through the words of those people who created it - from Harold Lloyd to Katharine Hepburn to Warren Beatty to Jane Fonda and beyond, including directors, writers, producers, editors, designers of sets and costumes. As such, the authenticity of the text is irrefutable. The material in the book - gathered over the decades by the American Film Institute - has never been published before, has never been heard before. It is comprehensive - a monument that will never age nor be surpassed.

For over fifty years, Kevin C. Kearns trekked the rough-and-tumble streets of the heart of Dublin, hoping to record and preserve the city's vanishing oral history. Armed only with a Sony tape recorder, the ordinary people he encountered - street traders, dockers, factory workers, tram drivers, housewives and midwives, children and grandparents - shared private stories of hardship, joy, sorrow, suffering, survival and triumph. In Our Day is the culmination of a life's work - a treasure trove bursting with whispers from the past - 450 vignettes, memories and recollections gathered to present an evocative, poignant portrait of a forgotten Dublin. 'Without Kevin, the lives of ordinary decent Dubliners would be forgotten. This book is a celebration of them.' Joe Duffy

In "Big Thicket Legacy," Campbell and Lynn Loughmiller present the stories of people living in the Big Thicket of southeast Texas. Many of the storytellers were close to one hundred years old when interviewed, with some being the great-grandchildren of the first settlers. Here are tales about robbing a bee tree, hunting wild boar, plowing all day and dancing all night, wading five miles to church through a cypress brake, and making soap using hickory ashes.

Flares of Memory is a collection of ninety-two stories written by over forty Jewish survivors and several U.A. Army liberators about their experiences during the Holocaust. The stories collected in this volume were developed in a writing workshop led by Brostoff and Chamovitz for survivors of the Holocaust in the hope of preserving their memories for posterity. The contributors to this collection related their recollections of being children, teenagers, and young adults during the Holocaust. Their individual experiences testify to the horror of the period as well as the moments of courage and luck that allowed them to survive while offering a tribute to the lives and cultures that were destroyed. The volume organizes the stories thematically into chapters, and includes a detailed timeline of the Holocaust, a map of concentration camps, and photographs of their contributors.

When written sources are scarce, historians often turn to oral histories for evidence. Bodies of Evidence: The Practice of Queer Oral History is the first book to provide serious scholarly insight into the methodological practices that shape lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer oral histories. The volume opens up a critical dialogue on the challenges of creating an archive of queer lives. Highlighting the work of fourteen authors who focus their research on queer community history, culture, and politics, each chapter pairs an oral history excerpt with an original essay in which the oral historian addresses his or her methods and practices. With an afterword by the preeminent scholar in the field, John D'Emilio, this collection enables readers to examine both a series of oral histories and analysis of the role memory, desire, sexuality, and gender play in documenting LGBTQ communities and cultures. The historical themes addressed within include lesbian bar history in San Francisco (c. 1940s, 1950s); early homophile organizing and social activism in Los Angeles (c. 1950s and 1960s); Third World Liberation and feminist antiwar activism in the U.S. and Canada (c. 1960s, 1970s); electoral politics and the career of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official in San Francisco (1970s); Latino AIDS memory and activism in San Francisco (1980s, 1990s); and the war in Iraq (2000s). The methodological themes addressed in this book that are relevant to the practice of oral history include questions of sexual self-disclosure and voyeurism in the uses of oral history methods by queer studies scholars; the intimacy between researcher and narrator negotiated through multiple oral history interviews and on-going casual conversations; the production of comparative racial and sexual identities within the context of oral history interviews; the production of in-group mythology by same-sexuality interviewing-and the possible benefits of cross-sexuality and cross-ideology interviewing; what heterosexually-identified narrators can tell us about LGBTQ life and death; the silences imposed by repressive U.S. government policy about sexual self-disclosure and the limits of permissible speech in highly politicized discourses such as "gays in the military." These themes provide new and insightful structures for thinking about oral history methods-both in general and in relation to the production of LGBTQ history.

This ground-breaking history of the UK Women's Liberation Movement shows why and how feminism's 'second wave' mobilized to demand not just equality but social and gender transformation. Oral history testimonies power the work, tracing the arc of a feminist life from 1950s girlhoods to late life activism today. Peppered with personal stories, the book casts new light on feminist critiques of society and on the lives of prominent and grassroots activists. Margaretta Jolly uses oral history as creative method, making significant use of Sisterhood and After: The Women's Liberation Oral History Project to animate still-unresolved controversies of race, class, sexuality, disability, and feminist identity. Women activists vividly recall a divisive education system, the unevenness of sexual liberation and the challenges of Thatcherism, Northern Ireland's Troubles and the policing of minority ethnic communities. They illuminate key campaigns in these wider contexts, and talk of the organizational and collaborative skills they struggled to acquire as they moved into local government, NGOs and even the business sector. Jolly provides fresh insight into iconic actions including the Miss World Protest, the fight to protect abortion rights, and the peace protest at Greenham Common. Her accounts of workplace struggles, from Ford and Grunwick to Women Against Pit Closures and Women and Manual Trades, show how socialist ideals permeated feminism. She explores men's violence and today's demands for trans-liberation as areas of continuing feminist concern. Jolly offers a refreshingly jargon-free exploration of key debates and theoretical trends, alongside an appreciation of the joyfully personal aspects of feminism, from families, homes, shopping and music to relationships, health, aging, death and faith. She concludes by urging readers to enter the archives of feminist memory to help map their own political futures. Her work will appeal to general readers, scholars and practitioners alike.

*Highly Commended by the British Records Association for the 2019 Janette Harley Prize* In September 1943, at the height of World War II, the Aegean island of Leros became the site of the most pivotal battle of the Dodecanese campaign as the British tried, in vain, to retain control of the island. Over the course of two short months - from 15 September 1943 to 17 November 1943 - almost 1500 men lost their lives and hundreds more ended up in Prisoner-of-War camps. In this book, Julie Peakman, a modern-day resident of Leros, brings to life the story of the men caught up in the battle based on first-hand interviews and written accounts including diaries, letters and journals. She tells of the preparations of the soldiers leading up to the battle, the desperate hand-to-hand fighting, and the suffering endured from continual bombings. She also shows the extent of the men's despair at the allied surrender, the many subsequent daring escapes as well as the terrible years of incarceration for those who were captured and imprisoned. Many of the heart-rending accounts of the battle are told here for the first time, providing a unique eyewitness take on this forgotten corner of World War II.