Ideas from the CBC: The Power of Oral History

Even when they end, wars shape the lives of those who fought them for years afterwards, and affect people generations later. Michael Petrou, an historian with the Canadian War Museum, says that the impact often appears with the greatest clarity not in historical scholarship, but in novels, films and poetry. Petrou, who has interviewed dozens of Canadian veterans, argues that oral history is a crucial means with which to learn about the impacts of war — that it broadens, even democratizes historical research. He delivers a lecture in defense of oral history, and speaks to host Nahlah Ayed to elaborate.