ABSTRACT
Documentary history is extremely valuable, but can be extremely limited. Documents on their own can exclude the passion, the emotion and the contradictions. They can also express the biased point of view of the people who made and kept them. The whole point about oral history is that it is an oral history, conveyed personally, by mouth. So it is an oral history which is now going to a physical or electronic library. History subverts itself, new information comes to light, new perspectives on the old history are always arriving, and the dynamic quality is there. So, getting the balance right to the contradiction is another important aspect. It does not mean that we eliminate the big, major figures. But it does suggest that the stories of ordinary people must be the main point of departure.
