Oral History: A Very Short Introduction by Douglas A. Boyd

An area of explosive interest and growth, oral history is a complex discipline not just sequestered to storytelling. The interview is a complex combination of strategy and flexibility, remembering and forgetting, narrative and silence, and cannot escape individual biases and perspectives.

Oral History: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2025) is a general introduction to the discipline from the interview to the archive. In this book, Douglas A. Boyd examines the oral history interview, recording techniques and strategies, technologies for making oral history accessible, and the legal and ethical implications throughout the work of oral history. Boyd also pays special attention to the role of the archive and the importance of memory. Equally important, the book also examines the world of digital possibilities for utilizing oral history for scholarly, public, community, and personal use.

Boyd is the Director of the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History at the University of Kentucky Libraries. He is the author of Crawfish Bottom: Recovering a Lost Kentucky Community (2011), and co-editor of Oral History and Digital Humanities: Voice, Access, Engagement (2014).

Oral History is part of the popular Very Short Introductions series published by Oxford University Press.