Abdullah Hanna, one of the most prominent historians of modern Syria, was a keen adopter of the methods of oral history, and was especially fond of the structured field interview. Hanna's scholarly work was underpinned by his belief in value of the oral history gained through such interviews as the starting point for a history of the "voiceless". In other words, Hanna's work formed part of a global interdisciplinary approach towards a "history from below", and which combined academic history with anthropology and sociology. Hanna was particularly keen to study questions of land ownership and the role of peasants and serfs in modern Syria. Ostour is publishing a number of texts which Hanna collected during his interviews of marginalized Syrians during the final two decades of the twentieth century, making them available to scholars interested in Social History and how it can confirm the present-day history of Syria.