Entangled: An Archaeology of the Relationships between Humans and Things - Tapa dura

Entangledmay be Ian Hodder s most theoretically ecumenical book to date. The discussion of the various current approaches being used in archaeology, anthropology, and many other disciplines makes this an extremely valuable work ... Hodder has written a tremendously useful addition to the literature on the relationship of people and things that deserves close reading. (Current Anthropology, 1 August 2013) Ian Hodder has written an extremely interesting, rigorously argued and intellectually adventurous book about the nature of things... Readers working across the social sciences and humanities, and particularly those working at the intersection of the physical and human sciences, will find the messy openness of Hodder s book vibrant and compelling. (Critical Quarterly, 2 July 2013) Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students, faculty, professionals. (Choice, 1 May 2013)

A powerful and innovative argument that explores the complexity of the human relationship with material things, demonstrating how humans and societies are entrapped into the maintenance and sustaining of material worlds * Argues that the interrelationship of humans and things is a defining characteristic of human history and culture * Offers a nuanced argument that values the physical processes of things without succumbing to materialism * Discusses historical and modern examples, using evolutionary theory to show how long-standing entanglements are irreversible and increase in scale and complexity over time * Integrates aspects of a diverse array of contemporary theories in archaeology and related natural and biological sciences * Provides a critical review of many of the key contemporary perspectives from materiality, material culture studies and phenomenology to evolutionary theory, behavioral archaeology, cognitive archaeology, human behavioral ecology, Actor Network Theory and complexity theory