In this book there are almost forty years of my work and my life: the voices, the events, the people who have shaped me – perhaps the most complete collection ever made of my oral history essays. Which is also the development and transformation of oral history, from a poor and marginal relative of "serious" historiography to becoming an instrument of articulated and recognized knowledge, which no longer has to defend its dignity from prejudices and positivist criticisms, but has been able to use them to elaborate an increasingly sophisticated and conscious methodology, adding to the referential credibility the centrality of dialogue and subjectivity. Fundamental to this evolution has been the gradual shift of the axis of oral history discourse from the north-western sphere (the United States and Europe) to a global dimension in which Latin America – Mexico, Brazil and Argentina, above all – has played a key role.

Alessandro Portelli