" "Tell me about the war" -- these words launched a ten-year project in oral history by a husband-and-wife team. Howard Hoffman fought in World War II from Cassino to the Elbe as a mortar crewman and a forward observer. His war experiences are of intrinsic interest to readers who seek a foot soldier's view of those historic events. But the principal purpose of this study was to explore the bounds of memory, to gauge its accuracy and its stability over time, and to determine the effects of various efforts to enhance it. Alice Hoffman, a historian, initiated the study because she recognized the critical role of memory in gathering oral history; Howard Hoffman, the subject, is an experimental psychologist. Alice's tape-recorded interviews with her husband over a period of ten years are the basic material of the study, which compares the events as recounted in the first phase of the interviews with later accounts of the same experiences and with the written records of his company as well as the memories of fellow soldiers and the evidence of photographs and other documents. This engrossing story of World War II breaks new ground for practitioners of oral history. The Hoffmans' findings indicate that a subset of human memory exists that is so permanent and resistant to change that it can properly be labeled "archival". In addition to describing some of the circumstances under which archival memories are formed, the Hoffmans describe the conditions that were found to influence their storage and retrieval.
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Book Description
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
Editorial Reviews
Review
"If you are an oral historian who enjoys war stories, you will take up this book without hesitation; if you don't enjoy them, you should persist anyway." -- Oral History Review
"A significant work in oral history. This book will help those who collect and use oral histories understand how and what people remember." -- American Historical Review
--This text refers to the Paperback edition.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Showing the Best for Oral History and Memory Research,
By Arthur B. Shostak (Narberth, PA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Archives of Memory: A Soldier Recalls World War II (Hardcover)
Throughgoing in pioneering scholarship and artistic in execution, this unique wife-husband collaboration advances the art of oral history, butresses the case for using memory and recognition in histories, and reads like a fine novel. Thanks to Alice's interviewing craft, Howard's rich memories of his varied WW11 experiences are validated. Oral history techniques are thereby improved, and the reader is treated all along to a very good read. Bold in conception, careful in completion, the book will reward all curious about the strengths and limitations of recall and recognition as scholarly aids. Any others open to learning more truth than ever about war will also be well rewarded
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Showing the Best for Oral History and Memory Research,
By Arthur B. Shostak (Narberth, PA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Archives of Memory: A Soldier Recalls World War II (Hardcover)
Throughgoing in pioneering scholarship and artistic in execution, this unique wife-husband collaboration advances the art of oral history, butresses the case for using memory and recognition in histories, and reads like a fine novel. Thanks to Alice's interviewing craft, Howard's rich memories of his varied WW11 experiences are validated. Oral history techniques are thereby improved, and the reader is treated all along to a very good read. Bold in conception, careful in completion, the book will reward all curious about the strengths and limitations of recall and recognition as scholarly aids. Any others open to learning more truth than ever about war will also be well rewarded
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