Entangled: A New Archaeology of the Relationships between Humans and Things

For those not professionally trained, or currently involved in anthropology or archeology, but an excellent treatment of human-thing relationships and interactions. I loved this, second book by Ian Hodder that I’ve read, but it will by no means the last of his that I intend to read. I recommend this to anyone who would like to find about trends in thinking in those fields, or who would simply like to expand their own thinking. Really well written, but not “simple” or “easy” to get through.

One of the best academic books I've ever read. Clear, charming, broad in scope and vision, with an amazing bibliography.Hodder, an eminent archaeologist, presents a theory of the connections between humans and things which will become essential for any student of the social sciences. While his goal of "an archaeology of the relationships between humans and things" is to restore a respect for "thingness" outside of human networks, he presents a synthetic theory of those relationships which builds on, but avoids some notable shortcomings, of work in similar as well as widely diverse disciplines, including network theory, actor-network theory, and several flavors of contemporary evolutionary thinking.Seriously, if you're a social scientist of any flavor, or just want to read academic work at its finest, pick this up right now. You're in for a mind-opening delight.

This book is a groundbreaking contribution to the study of archaeological theory. It explores the relationship between people and thins and their multiple interrelationships. The author shows us the commonalities among different theoretical orientations ( proccesual such as evolutionary or behavioral archaeology) Some more humanistic (chaine operatoire approach) or post-processual (interpretative, phenomenological). The applications to field archaeology concerning Catal Huyuk shed light about the methodology in Entangled Archaeology. I highly recommend its reading in courses of archaeological theory.

This was a required reading for one of my archaeology classes. The first 5 chapters were easy to follow but after chapter 5 I was just lost and couldn't understand what Hodder was trying to explain.

Great Book !!! Have not regret buying it, has been extremely informative and meets my expectations.

This book will be prompting discussion for years to come. A powerful and coherent work of synthetic theory. This is a truly fresh and thought-provoking contribution to our understanding of the intersection of materiality, agency, and anthropology. This is the materiality theory for which we've all been waiting.

Compelling read!

A top theoretical approach from a top archaeological theorist and practitioner. It can't just be read, it must be studied and thought about.

Hooder's book presents some interesting thoughts about things and the world that surrounds us, however his theories regarding entanglement tend to go on a tangent. As a scholar, I feel that this book is sometimes more about a personal point of view than on real ontology. Overall, this is a good book for those interested in the realm of material culture.

I think Ian Hodder has lost the plot as far as theory in archaeology is concerned, some of his previous books have been useful to me in my studies.