The name Carol van Driel-Murray has become synonymous with Roman leather. However, the breadth of Embracing the Roman Provinces shows how much she has influenced the wider field of Roman material-culture studies. The introduction by Breeze is a fitting tribute to Carol, who in his own words has changed ‘perceptions of colleagues within our discipline … twice’. The volume is split into five parts covering every aspect of life in the frontier regions of the Roman Empire. The topics covered are as varied as the Empire itself. From ‘It's a man's world’ (part 1) on men and the military to Roman bedding (part 5, chapter 19) it is all knitted together by the material culture of the lives of the range of individuals who made up the communities of the Roman frontier.

Although part 1 covers men and the military, it is not simply another list of arms and armour. Instead, we are treated in the beginning to discussion of a couple of rare and interesting pieces of cavalry equipment as well as the nuances of military organisation. These studies challenge the notion of the Roman military having been a unified machine by investigating the distinctiveness of individual units and people.

Part 2 emphasises the role that non-military personnel played on the frontiers. As James notes, evidence for the presence of non-military personnel ‘attests people crossing an evidently fluid boundary between the military and civilian communities’. Whether these people were women, soldiers’ families or traders and craftsmen, who might have come from either side of a frontier zone, the papers show that we must not only continuously challenge our preconceptions in light of new material-culture evidence but also use all the archaeological methods and evidence at our disposal in tandem with material culture.

Part 3 elegantly flows into a topic that unites both military and non-military personnel: food. Where did the frontier zones source their food (whether from local communities or further afield)? How was it traded and collected? How and when was food prepared? What was prepared and who got what share and in what space? The papers cover the material evidence for these different aspects of food consumption while all the time evoking the people who made up the frontier communities.

Part 4 covers an area in which Carol is in her element, namely leatherwork and shoes. If you ask her ‘How often do you look at a man's shoes?’, the answer will be, ‘frequently!’. Over the past decades she has deftly shown that shoes not only represent women and children, but also that they were imbued with meaning, whether this was personal or ritual. The papers in this section show that shoemakers and shoe-wearers took pride in their shoes, that they were much more than coverings for their feet, and that the introduction of footwear could change a whole community. They are testament to how far the study of Roman leatherwork has come.

Part 5 is more of a wildcard compared to the others and explores some understudied aspects of frontier communities. From the previous parts we know who used and did what, but not what they looked like or how they felt about the material culture they were using. The first paper in this part makes a convincing case for the argument that facial reconstructions and replica objects are important ways to connect with the past. The other two papers are a little closer to traditional material studies, but again add a personal touch by bringing to light everyday items – soft furnishings and combs – that are often viewed as purely functional or overlooked entirely.

Reading this volume was not just an eye-opening experience in terms of new and different objects, but also in terms of how important communities were on the Roman frontier. It made me reflect on Breeze's introduction, which notes that ‘Carol was an early supporter … of the Theoretical Roman Archaeology Group’ and acknowledges her support of several conferences over the years, including the Limes Congress and TRAC. This stylishly put together volume came out in 2018, but its focus on communities seems particularly poignant in 2021, with conferences on hold, given how important interdisciplinary studies are to this volume and how Carol has been and still is an important part of the frontier-studies community.