An Unauthorized History of the World: Oral History on the Front Lines

by Michael Riordon

Overview

An Unauthorized Biography of the World explores the practice of engaged oral history: the difficult, sometimes dangerous work of recovering fragments of human story that have gone missing from the official versions.

Michael Riordon has thirty years' experience as a writer and broadcaster in the field. Readers will encounter a gallery of brave, passionate people who gather silenced voices and lost life stories. The canvas is broad, the stakes are high: the battles for First Nations lands in Canada; environmental justice in Chicago; genocide in Peru; homeless people organizing in Cleveland; September 11/01, and after, in New York City; gay survivors of electroshock in Britain; the struggle to preserve a people's identity in Newfoundland; peasant resistance to a huge transnational gold mine in Turkey.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781896357935
Publisher:	Between the Lines
Publication date:	10/08/2004
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.05(w) x 8.95(h) x 0.76(d)

About the Author

MICHAEL RIORDAN teaches writing, and has written two books of oral history: Out our Way: Gay and Lesbian Life in the Country (BTL, 1996), and Eating Fire: Family Life on the Queer Side (BTL, 2001). He lives near Picton, Ontario.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

1 Finding Voice, Making Sense

2 Kanien'keha/Ts'eouli
(First Nations, Canada)

3 Land and Life
(First Nations, Canada)

4 Umut/Hope
(Turkey)

5 The Messenger
(Chicago, Illinois)

6 The Gale Began to Rise
(Newfoundland, Canada)

7 The Whole Truth
(Peru)

8 Passion in the Archives
(Canada)

9 9/11/01
(New York)

10 9/11/01 + 2
(New York)

11 History on the Floor
(labour, Canada)

12 Turning the Tables
(on the author)

13 A Really Tender One-Night Stand
(gay, Canada)

14 Keep Asking Questions!
(Cleveland, Ohio)

15 A Map of the Holy Land
(Israel-Palestine)

Oral History Resources List