Rather than the new and novel, in Artifacts: How We Think and Write about Found Objects, Crystal Lake asks us to look to the “old, dirty, rusty, moldy, and broken items” that were important to eighteenth-century society (4). In bringing our attention to what these fragments said (and did not or could not say) about the past and how eighteenth-century Britain responded to such communications, Lake shows us the importance of further broadening our studies of the material world. Through Lake's engaging and thought-provoking study, we learn to listen to the speculations and frustrations sparked by rusty items and become aware of the diverse political and social debates such ruminations contributed to. In Artifacts, we see eighteenth-century Britons engaging with a material world that appeared partial, difficult, and affective.

Old and broken objects were of particular interest to antiquaries in the long eighteenth century. These individuals studied the past and sought to build claims about it through their engagements with primary sources and physical remains. Such interest made large quantities of dirty, broken objects visible. Antiquaries’ particular kind of interest in these things was also revealing and continues to be so. Antiquaries held a specific understanding of objects and the material world, which allows us to recast our view of eighteenth-century material cultures, opening it up to new questions and perspectives. As Lake outlines, antiquaries thought that the old and broken items they sought to scrutinize had the capacity to speak for themselves. Instead of organizing their sources, antiquaries simply presented what they had found, “letting it speak for itself” (23). The types of objects that were most commonly of interest to antiquaries were coins, manuscripts, weapons, and grave goods, and it is these four categories of objects that provide the focal points for the four case studies that make up part two of the book. The materiality of these objects was thought to keep “England's recent history of regicide, republicanism, restoration, and tenuous compromise close to the surface,” while also dredging up earlier histories (34). These objects were seen to “simultaneously register and respond to historical events” (30). Their materiality was important. It was understood to “yield immutable facts” and thus these objects were believed to be able to resolve long-examined ideological conflicts (5). Artifacts were “actants”—they did things and had effects (48). They were made up of vibrant matter that called out and spoke to antiquaries and others. And yet, Lake finds that artifacts offered troubling stories in the eighteenth century.

For artifacts, Lake argues, need to be understood as partial objects. They are fragments of once complete objects, rather than wholes. Nevertheless, it is their partial state that opens up the possibilities of interpretation and ensures that any meaning can be achieved only through a degree of speculation. Although such speculations are grounded on the material presence of the artifact, the interpretations they provoke are never fully articulated by the objects themselves. Artifacts never speak definitively and therefore often open up troubling spaces. They change their stories or say nothing when required to say more. Although artifacts are understood to speak for themselves, no one can be absolutely sure what they say.

Thus, in the eighteenth century, coins were highly popular artifacts because they were understood as providing the most reliable evidence of the past. But as purveyors of information and means of remembering, they also had the power to create falsehoods. Their materiality could be altered, and in literary works coins came to act as “vehicles for documenting deception” (107). In fact, as objects that can speak for themselves but are often misunderstood, artifacts came to play an important part in provoking people to “read suspiciously” (110). Lake shows how artifacts, such as manuscripts, were used by writers, among them Horace Walpole, to show the implausibility rather than the plausibility of their stories. Because of the ways that manuscripts had been dispersed from monastic libraries in the sixteenth century and then put to use in the seventeenth century, they were understood as vulnerable not only to destruction but also to misinterpretation and fakery. They could not be trusted.

Lake shows how antiquaries called upon fragments of old objects to play significant roles in discussions of Britain's political past. Rather than considering their production, trade, and consumption, Lake analyzes material things as lively contributors to broader discussions within eighteenth-century British society and culture. She underscores the importance of thinking historically about understandings of and engagements with vibrant and affective matter. The history of such vibrancy becomes apparent and consequential. Artifacts also underlines the continued significance of eighteenth-century studies. By working across disciplines and methodological frameworks, Lake shows how fuller and more complex histories of the period can emerge.