It seems like the properties attributed in this opinion piece to oral history are actually properties of copying. If there are a lot of copies then a disaster i

It seems like the properties attributed in this opinion piece to oral history are actually properties of copying. If there are a lot of copies then a disaster is unlikely to destroy them all. But, printing, especially Movable Type, makes it practical to produce copies of written history. And then digital computers make it not just practical but essentially free. My understanding is that historians wouldn't call this "Oral history" but instead "Oral tradition". Because we now have technology to make and copy records, to them "Oral history" is the records of what people recall about something, typically first hand recollections. When you do this, mutation stops, which is valuable to historians. Example #1: Ronald Reagan gets elected US President. Written history, that this happened is directly recorded when it happened. Written History. Many copies. No mutations. Example #2: Someone from Reagan's campaign recounts to a historian the events of the election night as they realised he was going to win and this is recorded on tape. Oral History. Many copies. Mutations fixed at moment of recording shortly after election. Example #3: I recall hearing that Reagan was elected President and mention this to a historian in 2023 during a recorded conversation. It is PCM data and it's also auto-transcribed with transcription checked and corrected by the historian. Oral History. Fewer but still N copies. Mutations fixed only decades after event that was recalled. Example #4: Our intern re-tells the story she heard from me about Reagan being elected, on a podcast. She wasn't born until this century, so she wasn't a witness to the event, but she did hear me tell the story. Now arguably Oral tradition. Many Copies. Considerable mutation. Example #5: The podcast for some crazy reason goes viral. Mutated versions of the Reagan story, now sometimes naming Clint Eastwood for some reason, circulate. A popular "re-staging" of the text has an unnamed British woman hearing that Clint Eastwood has been elected on the radio, after Rick Astley's famous "Never Gonna Give You Up" is played, which means now it's the wrong man, the wrong year and little of the story has survived. This is definitely Oral Tradition. Huge numbers of copies. Mutations never cease.