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

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.

What People Are Saying

"Michael Riordon’s book represents oral history at its passionate best. Readers will find hope and inspiration in the pioneering work of activist oral historians across North America and beyond. Their remarkable stories tell us how oral history is bringing people together on the margins. Make no mistake, this fascinating book is no dry academic history." Steven High, Assistant Professor, Oral History, Nipissing University

"Perhaps it is only in an unauthorized biography of oral history that we can discover its true heart, history and purpose. This wonderful book was written by one who understands oral history from the inside – and masterfully reveals its mission to articulate history’s silences." Mary Marshall Clark, Director, Oral History Research Office, Columbia University, New York

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