Hello Paul. You should do this as a book review for Historical Archaeology!

William


-------- Message d'origine--------
De: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY de la part de paul courtney
Date: sam. 2011-04-09 14:39
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Objet : Historical Archaeology in Francel
 
A few people have asked for my thoughts as to whether the new French 
book _Archéologie de la France moderne et contemporaine _edited by 
Gilles Bellan and Flourent Journot(_L_a Decouverte, Paris 2011) is worth 
having. I have no intention of giving a long formal review but here are 
a few thoughts.  It is  expensive (20.95 euros) for its size of 180 
pages and 20.5 x 14.5 cms format  but is printed on nice paper with good 
colour photographs. It starts with a history of archaeology of the 
historical /post-medieval period in France (Renaissance onwards in 
French terms). It is basically a summary of recent excavations, survey 
and research undertaken by INRAP, the state archaeology service- this is 
statist France. It gives a good review of recent major projects some of 
considerable size which have occurred related to infrastructure 
developments from towns to the TGV rail. Some of the work such as the 
massive Louvre excavations and the digging up of the Grimsby "Chums" on 
the Somme (WWI members of the Lincolnshire regiment in which one of my 
grandfather's served). Other projects were new to me despite my serious 
attempts to keep up with French medieval and later archaeology. The book 
gives a good coverage of what is actually going on in the field and lab 
though outsiders might consider it uneven which reflects that this 
period is still weakly represented within university departments. 
However, the European problem is that landscape studies, for example, is 
interdisciplinary to the extent the work of historians, geographers and 
archaeologists is often difficult to distinguish. Strict heritage laws 
especially in northern Europe also limit the degree to which one can 
undertake research excavations. The main sections of the book cover 
environment and landscape archaeology, urban and industrial archaeology. 
More interpretative sections cover archaeology and anthropology (short), 
ceramics, transport and death. A short section discusses archaeology and 
anthropology but is really a short  dialogue on the scope of 'modern' 
archaeology seen as the "science of man" (colonialism, humanity versus 
science, material culture). The books shows both the strengths and 
weaknesses of French archaeology. One cannot be impressed by the grand 
scale of many of the open area excavation projects some of which no 
doubt produced hundreds of thousands of contexts. A great strength of 
the French system is their support of specialists in ceramics, glass, 
chemical and physical analysis, osteology etc which shows through in 
their contributions to this volume. This volume is a popular 
introduction so one would not expect it to delve too deeply into theory- 
the 'new' archaeology is briefly mentioned. However, an underlying  
weakness is the French inability to engage with theory and a deep 
distrust of Anglo-American historical archaeology as practised in 
anglophone countries (and a francophone Canadian friend committed on 
this when I forwarded a recent French research agenda on ceramics to 
them) - despite the remarkable influence of French philosophers and 
social scientists in anglophone archaeology from Levi-Strauss to 
Certeau. Overall I would recommend it to anyone who can read basic 
French (and the pictures are good if you struggle) as a good guide (in 
fact the only general guide in book form)  to recent French work and 
approaches and it has a useful bibliography. And in my role as co-editor 
of Post-Medieval Archaeology we would love any overviews or discussion 
papers on historical archaeology as practised in France.

paul courtney
Leicster
UK