What Makes Oral History Different

As a specialized resource in oral history discourse, “The Oral History Reader” has been published by Routledge in 1998, simultaneously in England, USA and Canada, then republished in 2003 and 2015. Being authored by specialist researchers, the articles included in this book discuss some issues in oral history such as: oral history development, methods of interview, position of oral history in contemporary historiography as well as stand for oral history projects. This article, the 6th from the whole 39 ones in the book, presents some important new researches in oral history discourse, precious enough to be translated. The article practices comparative analyses between oral and traditional methods of historiography from different points of view including: quality and quantity of the resources, objectivity in reproducing the events, and target issues. The comparison aims to clarify the distinction between the two methods in order to gain a better understanding of oral history.