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

130 ORAL HISTORY REVIEW AN UNAUTHORIZED BIOGRAPHY OF THE WORLD: ORAL HISTORY ON THE FRONT LINES. By Michael Riordon. Toronto: Between the Lines, 2004. 323 pp. Softbound, $21.95. This is not a book that fits easily into categories. It is a series of interviews with a variety of people around the world, most of whom are doing their best to make the world a better place, sometimes in small ways, sometimes in a large context; and oral history is the often the sub- ject, not the method. The author acknowledges that what he does might not be oral history–this reviewer considers it closer to journalism–but most of the interviewees are using oral history and using it in very excit- ing ways. This is one of those books that cheers you up to know that there are people doing such work in the world. Michael Riordon devotes each chapter not to an individual but to a particular kind of activism (the topic is usually activism) in a particular place–these range from his home country of Canada, to the United States, Turkey, Peru, Book Reviews 131 and Israel. This is not “the world” as advertised in the title, but the people and projects presented here have a geographical range. The topics Riordon introduces the reader to are proof of the wide usages of oral history: Using the preferred Canadian term for aboriginal people, he recounts how a First Nation librarian invites a writer for a res- idency and then persuades her to...