This is the companion to an exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, which includes objects gathered from many international collections, curated by Helen Strudwick. But it is more than a catalogue of the artefacts in the exhibition. Although not…
REVIEW BY CH Nicholas Higham’s comprehensive exploration of how ‘Roman Britain’ transitioned into ‘Anglo-Saxon England’ brings with it a wealth of topics that still resonate today – discussions of migration, integration, and cultural influences; Britain’s relationship with continental Europe; and…
REVIEW BY KK Published from the papers presented at the Belfast Bronze Age Forum, which took place on 9-10 November 2013, the editor makes a point of noting that the proceedings from this forum are not normally published, but that…
REVIEW BY FEDERICO SANTANGELO Shortly after the felling of the Sycamore Gap tree, David Breeze gathered an outstanding lineup of contributors to reflect on specific sections of Hadrian’s Wall: the result was a brilliant little book that should be required…
REVIEW BY STEPHEN RIPPON The character of the countryside all around us plays an important part in many communities’ sense of place. This is particularly clear in the south-west of Britain, where Cornwall’s distinctive place-names – those that pre-date its…
REVIEW BY PADDY LAMBERT This report details the results of a large (3.56ha) excavation undertaken by Archaeological Research Services prior to the construction of the new Cambridgeshire South Police Station. The result of the analysis suggests the site formed a…
REVIEW BY KK On the threshold between the Lowlands and the Highlands, the King’s Seat fort, 1.5km (a mile) west of Dunkeld on the River Tay, sits in an important location in the landscape. Despite its importance, little was known…
REVIEW BY GEORGE NASH The Altai region of western Mongolia has long been considered marginal in broader Eurasian archaeological narratives. In this book, William Fitzhugh and Richard Kortum build a compelling case for the region’s centrality in the evolution of…
REVIEW BY ANDREW SELKIRK The Roman province of Africa was famed as being the ‘breadbasket’ of the ancient city, for Africa produced the huge quantities of grain needed to feed the plebs of Rome. But why was this region so…
REVIEW BY ADAM KLUPS Are Muslims native to Europe? Should Islam, in a historical and cultural sense, be considered an indigenous European religion? Readers who believe they already know the answers to these questions may find themselves reconsidering after accompanying…
MHM’s round-up of the latest military history releases.
REVIEW BY NICHOLAS SAUNDERS The past 25 years have seen a revolution in our understanding of war (especially modern war), due partly to the shift from a solely military-history approach to an interdisciplinary one incorporating archaeology, anthropology, and scientific-technological advances.…
REVIEW BY MARC DeSANTIS Romans were hypocritical about gladiators. Typically slaves, criminals, or prisoners of war, they were seen by the upper crust as sitting squarely among the dregs of society. Yet they were admired, ogled, and cheered across the…
REVIEW BY TAYLOR DOWNING Helen Fry has specialised in fascinating and revealing histories of wartime intelligence and espionage, especially of the role of women in these activities. Women in Intelligence, The Walls Have Ears, and Spymaster are a few of…
REVIEW BY GRAHAM GOODLAD General Douglas MacArthur is arguably the most controversial military leader in US history. His command career was bookended by two divisive episodes. As Army Chief of Staff in 1932, he earned notoriety for forcibly removing the…
REVIEW BY SAM LEGGETT This volume reads as a ‘Who’s Who’ of early medieval cremation research, with most of the top historians, funerary-, and bio-archaeologists assembled. Williams and Lippok have been truly innovative here with how they have assembled the…
REVIEW BY JONATHAN LAST Cable routes and similar projects are a challenge to archaeologists because their narrow footprints are not necessarily representative of the broad landscapes they pass through. Yet they often offer glimpses into areas little touched by other…
REVIEW BY KK This book synthesises what is currently known about the Neolithic in Jersey, highlighting the fact that while our knowledge for some areas of the island and for some phases of the Neolithic is fairly extensive, for other…
REVIEW BY KK This is a nice short book on the history of the English banknote, and is rather timely, with the era of the banknote seemingly coming to an end as online transactions and credit card payments become ubiquitous.…
REVIEW BY SIMON ROFFEY Winchester: city of kings presents an authoritative exploration of one of England’s most historic cities, and one that has been the subject of extensive archaeological research. Consequently, this book traces the evolution of Winchester from its…
REVIEW BY JACQUELINE A NOWAKOWSKI Diligent reporting of a dispersed hoard of more than 50 Roman coins by metal-detectorists to the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) in 2009 led to a major landscape study of an unexplored area of Devon. Landscape…
REVIEW BY SARAH GRIFFITHS ‘Without the Nile Delta, ancient Egyptian culture could not have emerged’. This bold statement begins the first of a new series of volumes that aims to publish more rapidly the fieldwork reports from sites across north…
REVIEW BY MICHAEL TUNNICLIFFE This is a paperback edition of a work following the Third International Symposium on Christianity and Monasticism in Upper Egypt. There is a particular focus on the life and writings of St Shenoute, who was a…
REVIEW BY CAMPBELL PRICE This book takes as its subject a relatively unusual theme: books written about Egypt. But it is one that will probably interest Egyptophiles because many of us are avid collectors of books! As the author makes…
REVIEW BY HILARY WILSON Spinning and weaving are among the earliest ancient technologies, and implements used in textile production turn up in archaeological excavations worldwide. Introducing this volume, part of Oxbow’s ‘Ancient Textiles’ series, Chiara Spinazzi-Lucchesi emphasises the rarity of…
REVIEW BY SARAH GRIFFITHS This new publication developed from the first Egypt Exploration Society online course, taught in 2020, and includes contributions from 26 international experts. The book presents a curated journey through 50 key discoveries made by the EES,…
REVIEW BY PAUL T CRADDOCK This is a very thorough description of every aspect of the prehistoric copper mines on the Great Orme at Llandudno. It is also an attempt to recreate and describe an ancient community/activity not just from…
REVIEW BY BRANDON BRAUN The Latin motto for Shropshire – Floreat Salopia, ‘may Shropshire flourish’ – has been used since at least the 17th century, so it is a fitting title for the 100th volume of the Transactions of the…
REVIEW BY CH Dogs may be ‘man’s best friend’, but cats also share a long relationship with humans – a tale (tail?) that archaeologist Jerry Moore recounts in this absorbing overview, covering two million years of history and an equally…
REVIEW BY REBECCA GOWLAND The town of Blackburn in Lancashire was a key player in Britain’s industrial cotton boom, which saw a quadrupling of its inhabitants during the first half of the 19th century. This volume presents the results of…
REVIEW BY FINBAR McCORMICK This book is the first interdisciplinary analysis of early Irish kingship based on both historical and archaeological sources; it was formerly the preserve of just historians. This new approach is a fresh contribution to our understanding…
REVIEW BY ROB IXER This is the second landscape book by Jackson to be published this year and is in many respects a prequel to his earlier Rocks on the Edge of Empire, which is itself a splendid, sometimes stunning,…
REVIEW BY MATTHEW SYMONDS This volume honours Professor David Kennedy, a pioneering scholar of ancient Arabia and Rome’s eastern frontier, by bringing together 21 scholarly contributions examining both the archaeology of the wider region, and the way that it is…
REVIEW BY OSCAR MORO ABADIA This publication was created to accompany the British Museum Partnership Exhibition Ice Age art now, held at Cliffe Castle Museum in summer 2025. The exhibition showcased the British Museum’s remarkable collection of Pleistocene mobiliary art…
REVIEW BY TIMOTHY MATNEY The academic world inhabited by Sumerologists and Assyriologists is highly specialised and largely inaccessible for even the hardiest lovers of history. The texts themselves are fragmentary, often pieced together from disparate copies, deliberately anachronistic, and range…
REVIEW BY NICK HEWITT Developing a fresh interpretation for a well-charted subject area is always a challenge, as this reviewer knows only too well. I therefore approached Hugh Sebag-Montefiore’s reconsideration of the naval campaign fought to sustain the Soviet Union…