Synopses & Reviews
An Archaeology of Capitalism offers an account of landscape and material culture from the later Middle Ages to the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution. In tracing some of the roots of modernity back to the transformation of the countryside, this book seeks an innovative understanding of the transition between feudalism and capitalism, and does so through a unique synthesis of archaeology, economic, social and cultural history, historical geography and architectural history.
Medieval and early modern archaeology has in the past focused on small-scale empirical contributions to the study of the period. The approach taken here is both wider-ranging and more ambitious. The author breaks down the dividing lines between archaeological and documentary evidence to provide a vivid reconstruction of pre-industrial material life and of the social and mental processes that came together in the post-medieval period in the transition towards modernity. Matthew Johnson is careful to avoid a simplifying evolutionary explanation, but rather sees the period in terms of a diversity of social and material practices evident in material traces - traces that survive and that, when reused in different contexts, came to mean different things.
Synopsis
Archaeological theory is under constant change and expansion, and new approaches often result in leaps forward in understanding when applied to old material. In this book, Johnson applies his own brand of post-processual theory to a period usually dealt with from the historical tradition; the post-medieval, with the hope of discovering how the physical remains thus treated either reinforce or contradict the accepted versions of the changes to the fabric of society. The scope is wide, and the material studied is, by his own admission, eclectic: however, this is an immensely readable work which draws several interesting conclusions.
Synopsis
An Archaeology of Capitalism offers an account of landscape and material culture from the later Middle Ages to the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution. In tracing some of the roots of modernity back to the transformation of the countryside, this book seeks an innovative understanding of the transition between feudalism and capitalism, and does so through a unique synthesis of archaeology, economic, social and cultural history, historical geography and architectural history.
Medieval and early modern archaeology has in the past focused on small-scale empirical contributions to the study of the period. The approach taken here is both wider-ranging and more ambitious. The author breaks down the dividing lines between archaeological and documentary evidence to provide a vivid reconstruction of pre-industrial material life and of the social and mental processes that came together in the post-medieval period in the transition towards modernity. Matthew Johnson is careful to avoid a simplifying evolutionary explanation, but rather sees the period in terms of a diversity of social and material practices evident in material traces - traces that survive and that, when reused in different contexts, came to mean different things.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. [216]-232) and index.
About the Author
Matthew Johnson is Lecturer in Archaeology at the University of Durham. His published work includes Housing Culture: Traditional Architecture in An English Landscape.
Table of Contents
Preface.
1. Introduction.
2. Enduring Structures and Historical Understanding.
3. Understanding Enclosure.
4. Housing, Fields, Maps and Cultures.
5. Ordering the World.
6. Archaeologies of Authority.
7. Redefining the Domestic.
8. Thinking about Objects.
Conclusion.
Glossary.
References.
Index.