In this refreshing and important book, Joanna Brück sets out to challenge the ways in which discussions about the European Bronze Age are often framed in social evolutionary terms and the period is sometimes still seen as a precursor for some aspects of the modern world or ‘the first golden age of Europe’. She sets out to do this by exploring the nature of the Bronze Age through challenging the boundaries that are often drawn between active people and passive objects, and by arguing that ideas of the self were constructed in relational rather than individualistic terms and that objects, houses and landscapes each had their own animate entities. This theoretical framework is set out in the introductory chapter ‘identity and alterity’, which is followed by four thematic chapters on ‘fragmenting the body’, ‘object biographies’, ‘the living house’ and ‘social landscapes’, concluding with a chapter on ‘the flow of life’ that brings together many of the arguments.

The book provides an accessible view of some of the latest thinking about the Bronze Age, much of which Professor Brück’s own work has inspired. It is well written, ideas – and there are many – are expressed clearly and illustrated by examples drawn from a comprehensive knowledge of the archaeology of Britain and Ireland, supported by a range of good illustrations and a thorough index.

The thematic nature of the book means that regional diversity and chronology are treated with a light touch, but this does not mean that change is overlooked. Important developments such as the appearance of permanent houses or the development of field systems in the middle of the second millennium bc feature and help structure the relevant chapters, but their focus is how these changes were understood and how those understandings helped shape human relationships, identities, beliefs and values. It could be objected that this approach sometimes leads to interpretations that are not worked through fully, ideas moving straight from ‘may’ or ‘might’ to examples that evidence the idea, or that alternative interpretations of the evidence are not discussed – for example, where the location of materials within settlements might be explained by chance or natural taphonomic processes – but it is impossible for a book of this scope to consider such detail.

The book is deftly argumentative but unfailingly courteous. It is wide-ranging but one theme is notable by its absence. Although the distinction between sacred and profane is challenged constantly, there is little discussion of religious beliefs or religious sites such as those stone circles and henges that were built in the Bronze Age. The interpretation of the cosmos of the Nordic Bronze Age as comprising the sky, earth and underworld is mentioned in chapter 5, but nothing is said about the gods of Britain and Ireland or how beliefs in them helped to construct personhood. More could have been said here, but this is, above all, a book about ideas and many important old ones are discussed and new ones proposed. And if readers do not agree with all the new ideas, Brück will have achieved her objective of challenging the way the Bronze Age is thought about.