Review: Soviet Families' Inner Lives

How did Stalin’s terror shape “the inner world of ordinary Soviet citizens” (xxix)? To answer this question, the British historian Orlando Figes organized a team of researchers who interviewed Russians about life since the Revolution. They also collected their personal documents and created several archives and a website (http://www.orlandofiges.com), which serve as extensions of Figes’s book. The “moral sphere of the family” (xxx) is the focus of Figes’s 700-page-narrative. In this sweeping exploration, he masterfully handles a massive number of sources as he constructs a complex history of myriad psychic, emotional, intellectual, social, and cultural changes over the course of nearly a century. The thrust of this compelling and often tragic story of families’ everyday lives in Stalinist Russia derives from hundreds of testimonies that have survived through letters, photographs, diaries, memoirs, oral histories, and many other personal or socalled ego-documents. The result is a history of Soviet society’s mentalité in the longue durée.

Review: Duty

Greg Jaffe covered the Pentagon for The Washington Post and is a co-author of “The Fourth Star: Four Generals and the Epic Struggle for the Future of the United States Army.” Maybe it was the time of year, just before the Christmas holidays. Maybe it was the setting — a bare-bones combat outpost in the violent mountains of eastern Afghanistan. Maybe it was the strain of more than four years of signing deployment orders that he knew would lead to the deaths of more young Americans. But in December 2010, speaking to troops clustered around him, Robert M. Gates was overcome by an uncharacteristic flood of emotion.

With photos and oral history, a new book

With photos and oral history, a new book portrays Roberto Clemente mostly through the eyes of his family. "There was so much pressure being Roberto Clemente, at that moment, I didn't want to be Roberto Clemente."

ANZAC Memories

Anzac Memories was first published to acclaim in 1994, and has achieved international renown for its pioneering contribution to the study of oral history and war memory. Michael McKernan wrote that the book gave ‘as good a picture of the impact of the Great war on individuals and Australia as we are likely to get in this generation’. Ian McGibbon concluded that 'anyone interested in the limitations and potentialities of oral testimony will find Anzac Memories an absorbing study'.

Oral History, Community, and Work in the American West

Nurses, show girls, housewives, farm workers, casino managers, and government inspectors—together these hard-working members of society contributed to the development of towns across the West. The Essays in this volume show how oral history increases understanding of work and community in the twentieth century American West.

Llanview in the Afternoon

If you have watched One Life to Live over any, or all, of its over four decades of existence, and want to get a glimpse of what it was like throughout all the different casting, writing, and producing regime changes, and read some never- before- known moments that happened on the set, and behind-the-scenes of one of the most iconic soaps of all-time, then you should order your copy of the just released paperback book or kindle version of Llanview in the Afternoon: An Oral History of One Life to Live by Jeff Giles!

The Oral History Review Published- Volume 40

(Issue 1 Winter-Spring 2013) of the Oral History Review is a special issue that builds on and extends the work of the Oral History in the Digital Age (OHDA) Project. That project began with a grant proposal to the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) in the National Leadership Grants category.

Oral Literature in the Digital Age: Archiving Orality and Connecting with Communities

Thanks to ever-greater digital connectivity, interest in oral traditions has grown beyond that of researcher and research subject to include a widening pool of global users. When new publics consume, manipulate and connect with field recordings and digital cultural archives, their involvement raises important practical and ethical questions. This volume explores the political repercussions of studying marginalised languages; the role of online tools in ensuring responsible access to sensitive cultural materials; and ways of ensuring that when digital documents are created, they are not fossilized as a consequence of being archived.

Memory and Representation in Contemporary Europe.

Siobhan Kattago’s most recent book discusses the issue of the presence of the past in contemporary Europe and the role it plays in different societies. Having published numerous works on the subjects of memory, history, and historical responsibility, focusing primarily on Estonia and Germany, she takes these two countries as representations of the two versions of the European historical narrative. Kattago’s previous work (_Ambiguous Memory: The Nazi Past and German National Identity_, 2003) has been praised for being an “informed and useful overview,” but criticized for terminological chaos and not providing enough original analysis.

LOUDER THAN HELL: The Definitive Oral History of Metal Public Book Signing Event and Party

Authors Jon Wiederhorn and Katherine Turman will be doing press at the event, moderated by comedian Don Jamieson of VH1 Classic’s THAT METAL SHOW! It will also feature an appearance by rock photographer STEPHANIE CABRAL.