Now New Yorker journalist Patrick Radden Keefe has written a bestseller that offers a ground-level history of The Troubles from the perspective of some of the participants and their victims. Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland is also a detailed and thoughtful account of how the oral history collection of the Troubles was made and deposited, and then seized and exploited.
It's an upputdownable story -- and should make everyone nervous about Sinn Fein's strong showing in the Irish election of the other week. For historians, it's also a riveting account of how not to organize and run an oral history project on a subject that requires confidentiality. Anyone who has ever done interviews and made promises to interviewees should read and contemplate this story.
Update, same day: For a current equivalent, here's how the Trump administration weaponizes confidential private therapy documents as part of its strategy to deport underage refugees.
