Book Review: Death by Theory: A Tale of Mystery and Archaeological Theory by Adrian Praetzellis

Book Review: Death by Theory: A Tale of Mystery and Archaeological Theory by Adrian Praetzellis 2000, Altamira Press, California. 174 pages, $59.00 (cloth),$17.95 (paper)

The Earth of the Modern

One of the central questions in comparative studies of colonialism is what makes more recent variants of imperial extension so culturally distinctive, aside from the more obvious political-economic dimensions? This set of papers focuses on how European and Euro-American promulgated variants of colonialism can be viewed as embodying central tenets of modernism, such as progressivism, technocentrism, and hybridity. Moreover, the authors demonstrate how colonial practices in the era of the modern were not merely the result of policies emanating from imperial capitals, but were an outgrowth of conflict, mediation, and accommodation between colonizer and colonized. Thus, archaeological research is important for stressing that the past five centuries have seen a time of contested modernities, rather than the growth of \u27a\u27 modernist sensibility