What is it that oral historians do? Prior to the publication of Envelopes of Sound oral history was regarded as an archival practice and interviews were considered the repositories of data. Envelopes shows that the interview is a series of dialectical relationships embedded in language, social practice, and historical imagination. It merges theory and method through the analysis of the basic structures of the interview. It incorporates new thinking on the nature of narrative and conversation, and it covers new ground in examining fieldwork in a number of disciplines. While strongly...