Elizabeth Tonkin looks at how oral histories are constructed and how they should be interpreted. Her study is illustrated through a wide range of examples of memory, narration, and oral tradition, including many from Europe and the Americas, and with a particular focus on oral histories from the Jlao Kru of Liberia, with whom the author has carried out extensive research. She also draws on and integrates the insights of a range of disciplines, such as literary criticism, linguistics, history, psychology, and communication and cultural studies.