Following important contributions to the archaeology of race, as well as textbooks dealing with historical archaeology, Charles Orser returns to the haunts that he explored in the late 1990s in his landmark volume A Historical Archaeology of the Modern World (Orser 1996).

In the earlier work, Orser outlined his approach to a specific type of globally oriented archaeology that engaged the four “haunts” (now also called metaprocesses) of the modern world―colonialism, eurocentrism, capitalism, and modernity. This new, slimmer, and streamlined volume revisits and updates this approach in the form of a textbook. The result, however, is also a well-thought-out manifesto outlining Orser's version of historical archaeology or “modern-world archaeology.” This is an archaeology that “explicitly investigates the post-1500 world through the lens of interconnectedness and interrelationships” (p. 1). His modern-world archaeology is decidedly global in scope (an approach Orser has advocated since the 1990s) and deploys multiscalar analysis to bridge the local/global divide.

Although this book is, at its heart, a restatement of Orser's 1996 thesis, it has the advantage of almost 20 years’ worth of writing, researching, and thinking about the subject of the archaeology of the modern world. The largest change is the welcome addition of “racialization” to his four haunts, clearly the direct influence of Orser's recent and fruitful engagement with the topic of race. Racialization replaces “modernity” in this new iteration, as the author has decided that modernity “has too broad a meaning to be entirely useful” and that he “could no longer overlook the historical and cultural significance of racialization as a meta-process of post-Columbian history” (p. vi). It is clear that the topic of modernity is deeply entwined with Orser's other haunts, and it is, without a doubt, an amorphous and ambiguous construct. It is, however, not entirely clear to this reader why it needed to be jettisoned, or why we need only four haunts. Why not five? Furthermore, is modernity any more “broad” than globalism, capitalism, or eurocentrism? Is it clear where any of these concepts begin or end? Given the amount of scholarship engaging the difficult, but essential, concept of “modernity,” I think it should be considered.

Having said that, the repeated focus on the connection between the global and local in modern-world archaeology is to be applauded. Orser's commitment to globally oriented archaeology is well documented and much needed. This new volume presents Orser's approach in a very straightforward, accessible way for the student and professional alike. Eight chapters lay out the description of these haunts and a research program with which to address them—complete with a number of brief case studies. This program uses approaches and ideas from noted historian Fernand Braudel, network theory, world-systems theory, and, of course, Marx. As one can discern from this list, Orser's approach is very structurally oriented. Ideas regarding individual agency, practice theory, and the new materialism get short shrift in Orser's program. The first chapter tackles the history of modern-world archaeology and how it has grown out of a more general historical archaeology, and Chapter 2 outlines Orser's haunts in detail. Following these two introductory chapters, Orser gives the reader a series of programmatic “how-to” chapters—Chapter 3, The Foundation; Chapter 4, Structures; Chapter 5, Microhistory; and Chapter 6, Artifacts. Orser follows this series of chapters with a couple meant to address the connection/difference to other ways of approaching the past and a defense of why modern-world archaeology is relevant.

Whether or not you subscribe to Orser's approach, this volume will be useful as a point of engagement. This modern-world archaeology is very programmatic and specific, and Orser raises many good and interesting points about historical archaeology and its role in the critique of the haunts. Thus, whether you are a novice or a practicing archaeologist who wants to understand and engage modern-world archaeology, you will want this volume on your shelves. It is the newest, best statement of the overarching approach of one of the major theorists of global, modern archaeology.