The second edition of Contemporary Archaeology in Theory: The New Pragmatism, has been thoroughly updated and revised, and features top scholars who redefine the theoretical and political agendas of the field, and challenge the usual distinctions between time, space, processes, and people.

• Defines the relevance of archaeology and the social sciences more generally to the modern world
• Challenges the traditional boundaries between prehistoric and historical archaeologies
• Discusses how archaeology articulates such contemporary topics and issues as landscape and natures; agency, meaning and practice; sexuality, embodiment and personhood; race, class, and ethnicity; materiality, memory, and historical silence; colonialism, nationalism, and empire; heritage, patrimony, and social justice; media, museums, and publics
• Examines the influence of American pragmatism on archaeology
• Offers 32 new chapters by leading archaeologists and cultural anthropologists

Robert W. Preucel is Professor and Chair of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, Gregory Annenberg Weingarten Curator of the American Section at the University Museum, and Director of the Penn Center for Native American Studies. His most recent book is Archaeological Semiotics (Wiley-Blackwell, 2009 in paper).

Stephen A. Mrozowski is the founding director of the Andrew Fiske Memorial Center for Archaeological Research at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, where he also serves as Chair of the Department of Anthropology. He has published more than sixty scholarly articles and monographs and is the author of The Archaeology of Class in Urban America (2006).