Becoming Hopi is the kind of volume of which archaeologists engaged with Indigenous peoples dream of being part: the result of a coequal partnership driven by the wants and needs of the community. It is accessible, multivocal, empirically driven, thought provoking, emotionally powerful, hyperlocal, and globally relevant.

At its heart, this book presents a history of the Hopi Pueblo people of northern Arizona, a history of settlement and migration that spans thousands of years across the American Southwest and beyond. The core of the narrative, based on material and historical data, centers on the present homes of the Hopi, the Hopi Mesas, and adjacent areas. Yet unlike some anthropologists, who have traditionally divorced the past from the present, the editors of this Hopi history have firmly situated the past in the present with an eye toward the future. As discussed by the multitude of Hopi voices that author—or are quoted in—every aspect of the book, the past cannot be understood without the knowledge of a living culture, and the actions of the ancestors both affirm and provide lessons to the people today. In this way, Becoming Hopi is as much an exploration of contemporary Hopi culture as it is an archaeological monograph.

The book is the culmination of almost two decades of the Hopi Archaeology Project, a collaboration between the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office and the University of Redlands. This work yielded a vast amount of site-specific, survey, ceramic, and petroglyph data that the editors compiled and organized. External researchers were then invited to workshop and coauthor chapters in areas of their specific expertise. The result is a big book (over 600 pages) filled with color photographs and figures. The first half includes 12 chapters of primary text; the back half consists of appendixes with site information and additional data. The book is coedited and each chapter cowritten by both Hopi and non-Hopi scholars. I apologize for not citing specific authors here; in a book of this size and scope, and with so many contributors, it is just not possible to do so in a brief review.

Although Becoming Hopi functions as an interwoven whole, I view this volume as essentially four books in one. It is first directed at the Hopi people, to present and strengthen their cultural inheritance and ties with the land and their ancestors. Both the research questions and resulting narratives are driven by the interests of the Hopi people. Editors and authors have strived to keep the text as accessible as possible, primarily by including callout boxes with definitions and explanations of key concepts. This does not mean that concepts and ideas are simplified (this is a scholarly book, but not just for those who are trained in the Western academic tradition), but anthropological language becomes slightly more democratic. I found this accessibility to be very effective, and I believe that this will work well with students and scholars—as well as the general public—who are not familiar with the peculiarities of the American Southwest. In fact, my one criticism is that this approach to accessibility was a bit uneven through the chapters, but this was likely the result of the countless compromises in editing.

Second, this book presents an excellent primer on historic and contemporary Hopi culture. As archaeology increasingly seeks to humanize the past, we often return to late nineteenth– and early twentieth–century ethnography. Anthropological work at Hopi is a “mixed bag,” and although these early accounts are important, they were written during periods of historical tumult, often without the direct input of Hopi individuals, and many times, they were biased or plain wrong. Chapter 3 seeks to reframe this ethnography (and early archaeology) in light of historic and modern Hopi voices, and explore how the Hopi have worked to take the reins of this narrative. Consequently, this is the goal of the first half of the book, which provides the contemporary context for understanding Hopi history. This includes a discussion of Hopi philosophical and historical perspectives (Chapter 1); Hopi perspectives on their cosmological, historical, and social landscape (Chapter 2); and the natural setting on which this history unfolds (Chapter 4). These threads come together in Chapter 5, which explores Hopi agriculture, the core of Hopi philosophical, moral, and economic being. Although this book is expressly about the Hopi people, scholars interested in other Pueblo people will find many broad similarities and be inspired to view others’ histories through a more holistic lens.

Third, although unique, this is an archaeologically based book. Based on the premise of accessibility, these chapters are organized synthetically, with a discussion of population movement and migration (Chapter 6), early Hopi communities (Chapter 7), and the formation of large villages (Chapter 8), forming the core presentation of the project's historic narrative. The inclusion of Hopi perspectives and voices, and some exciting new data, helps turn traditional archaeological assumptions about Hopi history on its head. The discussion of petroglyphs in Chapter 9 is delightful and innovative, and Chapter 10's exploration of connections and boundaries (the social network analysis) is thorough, and it solidly ties Hopi's history into the greater Southwest. This section ends with a discussion of European contact and colonialism, a topic that is fleshed out in much more detail in the recent—and excellent—two-volume Moquis and Kastiilam (2020, edited by Thomas Sheridan et al.). I was also impressed with the discussion in the last chapter, which explores both continuity and change in Hopi history—a balance that archaeologists (but not the Hopi) have had difficulty comprehending.

Last, this book also serves as a reference. Several lengthy appendices include site descriptions and maps, clan migration routes, and radiocarbon dates. Usually, such information is situated in a separate monograph, or in gray literature, but its placement in the book makes these critical pieces of archaeological scholarship readily available for both anthropologists and Hopi people.

All of these parts, taken both separately and as a whole, present a unique and impressive perspective on Hopi history. It is one of the best examples of a mature Indigenous archaeology project to emerge from the Southwest, and it will be of great interest to those working (or who want to work) on similar projects globally. As the last chapter details, archaeology and history are more relevant to our contemporary lives than we often realize—particularly to the communities in which we work. Yet, as I was reading, the most impactful aspect of the book was something more subtle. Archaeology is inherently authority driven, and our receptiveness to new data or arguments is influenced by our trust in established authors and publishers. Although this volume certainly has those, the fact that the book was coedited (and vetted and approved) by Hopi scholars—with the support of the Hopi Tribe—gives every aspect an authority and weight I have never experienced before when reading an archaeological history.