I would like to begin this review with Orser's belief and claim that the archaeology of the modern-world is the most relevant archaeology (for instance, pp. 107, 146). This provocative statement will be controversial (as he admits) and even unsettling to some of his readers. As a reader, two questions follow from such a claim: what is modern-world archaeology and why is it the most relevant archaeology? The answers to these two questions form the backbone of Orser's clear, concise, and debatable Primer, which comes as an update to his previous A Historical Archaeology of the Modern World (Reference Orser1996).
In its most essential definition, as stated in the preface of the book, modern-world archaeology ‘is a kind of historical archaeology of the past five centuries that has as one of its main goals the analysis and interpretation of the union of the four great metaprocesses (or haunts) of modernity: colonialism, capitalism, Eurocentrism, and racialization’ (p. v). It has thus a conceptual meaning that goes beyond a mere post- ad 1500 chronological understanding; and a political commitment that engages the local and the global and the present and the past. After acknowledging the necessary, but, in Orser's view, insufficient, contributions of what he refers to as traditional historical archaeology, he goes on to break down the main features behind his definition of modern-world archaeology in the eight chapters that integrate the book.
Chapter 1 (‘Modern-World Archaeology’) serves as an introduction in which the main principles and tenets that will be later developed further are presented, with special attention to the distinction between modern-world archaeology and artefact- and site-oriented traditional historical archaeology. Chapter 2, titled ‘The Haunts’, is specifically focused on the four ‘haunts’ of modern-world archaeology: colonialism; mercantilism/capitalism; Eurocentrism; and racialization (with both mercantilism and racialization coming as new inclusions in this primer). ‘The Foundation’ (Ch. 3) summarizes the fundamental theoretical perspectives that inspire modern-world archaeology: the Annales school (mainly the work of Fernand Braudel); network theory; Immanuel Wallerstein's world-systems theory; and Karl Marx's dialectical thinking. Drawing on Donald Donham‘s History, Power, Ideology (Reference Donham1999), Chapter 4, ‘Structures’, explores ‘epochal structures’, conceptualized as frameworks defined by ‘principles, practices, and meanings imagined and conceived by society's ruling elites’ that limit and guide ‘daily social interaction’ and reproduce ‘social relations through time’ (p. 73). Modern-world archaeology is dedicated to investigating the epochal structure that emerged around ad 1500 by the union of the four ‘haunts’ and persists to this day. As an eclectic discipline from a theoretical-methodological point of view, modern-world archaeology also shares procedures with microhistory, an approach focused on the micro-scale, the individual, and everyday life, as shown in Chapter 5, ‘Microhistory’. The following chapter (Ch. 6, ‘Artifacts’), dedicated to material culture, emphasizes the sui generis character of most post- ad 1500 artefacts in that they were created as commodities from the outset. Chapter 7, ‘Challenges’, explores the challenges faced by modern-world archaeology and the tenets shared with postcolonial thinking. Finally, ‘The Future of Modern-World Archaeology’ (Ch. 8) presents some final thoughts where the issue of modern-world archaeology as being the most relevant archaeology is foregrounded. In case the previous pages were not clear enough, here there is no doubt that Orser's understanding of ‘relevance’ refers to the fact that modern-world archaeology deals with historical processes that are still on the move and that, because of this, it has a ‘special ability to enlighten us about how our world came to be.’ (p. 148).
In addition to the above, A Primer on Modern-World Archaeology also responds to some critiques or misunderstandings that followed the 1996 publication of Orser's programme (such as the dismissal of the local at the expense of the global), remarks on some archaeologists’ bad habits (such as too rapid adherence to theoretical fashions or exclusive focus on narrow description), and expresses desirables for the future (such as a more robust knowledge convergence between disciplines, in particular between archaeology and history). In my view, the weakest aspect of the book is to be found in Orser's critique of some concepts and thinking as not fitting into his modern-world archaeology programme—such as, for example, postmodernist thinking or the concept of agency. This judgement often comes across as oversimplified (see, for instance, the relationship between postmodernist thinking and capitalism in p. 26) and lacks bibliographic references against which to compare the accuracy of the author's own comments.
Although Chapter 2 is explicitly focused on the four ‘haunts’, these four metaprocesses and their interconnections are present and discussed throughout the Primer. To me, however, the most compelling account comes at the end of the book, in Chapter 7. While in the preceding chapters the four ‘haunts’ are presented as non-hierarchically interrelated processes that converge in modernity, Chapter 7 seems to situate colonialism at the forefront of the other three because ‘Eurocentrism, racialization and capitalism would have far different characteristics in the absence of European expansion and colonialism.’ (p. 124).
I miss, however, one important metaprocess in Orser's ‘haunts’ of modernity, namely gender (see also Little, Reference Little2007: 46), for at least two important reasons, both related to the author's concerns. Firstly, even though gender systems predate the modern world, it is during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that the first globalization of the Western gender system takes place (obviously with sui generis local implementations) (Montón-Subías et al., Reference Montón-Subías, Cruz Berrocal, Ruiz, Montón,Subías, Berrocal and Ruiz2016: 5). This fact affected the lives of thousands of people all over the world, and it is not possible fully to understand modernity, and even the present world in its actual shape, without considering such historical dynamics. Secondly, gender (and sexism as one of its main consequences) is also a main ‘haunt’ behind the contemporary practice of archaeology. To use Orser's expression, gender is also one of the ‘wrongs of the past’ (p. 20) that a ‘relevant’ archaeology should help—and in fact has been helping—to redress.
Regarding relevance, I would like to add a few concerns in relation to the author's fundamental statement that modern-world archaeology is the most relevant archaeology.
It is unlikely that anybody will question that Eurocentrism, capitalism, racialization, and colonialism are still operating today, but to conclude from this that archaeological research on these themes is necessarily the most relevant is a different matter entirely. Even if we narrow ‘relevance’ to Orser's use of it (something in my view risky due to the widespread embedded use and acceptance of the word), I find it troublesome because many of the historical processes that have moulded the world to its actual shape predate ad 1500 by many centuries. Even fully accepting that ad 1500 represents such a substantial turning point in history, we need to acknowledge that some facts of the present—such as social and gender inequality, existing identities and ways of being a person, cultural values and attitudes―have been formed by complex long-standing processes beginning already in prehistory, and can only be well understood and modified (a strong concern in Orser's Primer) in light of their historical backgrounds. In a more common and wider use of the term ‘relevance’, and as an archaeologist working with Spanish modern colonialism in Guam, I would also have serious concerns in subscribing to the author's statement. Here, as in other parts of the globe where indigenous and cultural practitioners’ movements exist, archaeologies of the pre-colonial world are at least as important as archaeologies investigating Orser's ‘haunts’. I am well aware that without colonialism such movements would probably not exist, but I am also aware that to many activists in the present the bond to the pre-colonial pasts is claimed as the more relevant one.
This being said, I would like to make very clear that Orser's contribution meets all the requirements a primer must have. The book could not be clearer and easier to read. It is also illustrated with eloquent archaeological examples and with a selection of useful references (‘Suggested Readings’) that are listed at the end of each chapter. It works at different scales, helping the student in search of understanding of historical archaeology, the archaeologist unfamiliar with this branch of the discipline, and all those who want to go further in its intricacies. Especially compelling is the author's explanation of ad 1500 as a historical watershed and his conceptual definition of historical archaeology beyond a pure chronological (post- ad 1500) or methodological (text-aided) meaning. In the wake of anti-colonial, postcolonial, and decolonial thinking, historical archaeology may contribute to understand better not only the changes in the world that began to take place around this date, but also the change of the world that these changes represent (sensu Quijano, Reference Quijano2000). Importantly, Orser's political commitment makes clear the connection between the previous changes, the four ‘haunts’, and the practice of archaeology in the present. This is, of course, not surprising if we take into account that archaeology as a discipline was born in modernity and as part of its logic. Not only its professional practice, but also its current mainstream discourses, are impregnated with it (see for instance, contributions in González-Ruibal, Reference González-Ruibal2013).
