Abstract
What might Friedrich Nietzsche, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Jacques Derrida, Anthony Giddens, Claude Levi Strauss, Louis Binford, Michael Shanks, and Daniel Miller have in common? What are the relationships between McGuire's A Marxist Archaeology (1992) and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (Persig 1974). If you like the conjunction of paradigms from philosophy and psychology, reflections upon science and the humanities, refreshing reconsiderations of the processual and post-processual debates, and mental gymnastics, you will undoubtedly enjoy a majority of the essays found in this unique book.
Highlights
The goal of this volume is to reflect upon recent theoretical issues in archaeology
The commentators are, in the main, practicing archaeologists educated in the British tradition with substantial backgrounds in social anthropology, social theory, and philosophy
The book engages an important question: Has contemporary theory in archaeology moved from constructive, "progressive" dialogues to a series of defensive, intractable positions or "pos tures?" Mackenzie states that the idea that archaeologists "... can disengage their personal, social, and political context from their work must be construed as posturing" (p. 26)
Summary
A majority of the authors are concerned about the major debates on archaeological theory that have taken place during the past two decades - for example, science and interpretation, and processualism and post-procesus alism. The second chapter, "Archaeology: Theories, Themes, and Experience" (22 pp., no references) is a dialogue between Mackenzie and Michael Shanks (Lecturer in Archaeology at the University ofWales, Lampeter).
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