Margarita Diaz-Andreu is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Archaeology at Durham University.

This kind of far-reaching scholarship is exceedingly difficult to produce, and only a few scholars possess the learning and historical judgment to pull it off. Victorianists should be grateful that Díaz-Andreu has applied herself to the task.

• 1. An alternative account of the history of archaeology in the nineteenth century ; I. THE EARLY ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE GREAT CIVILIZATIONS ; 2. Antiquities and political prestige in the early modern era ; 3. The archaeology of the French Revolution ; 4. Archaeology and the 1820 liberal revolution: the past in the independence of the Greek and Latin American nations ; II. THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF INFORMAL IMPERIALISM ; 5. Informal imperialism in Europe and the Ottoman Empire: the consolidation of the mythical roots of the West ; 6. Biblical archaeology ; 7. Informal imperialism beyond Europe: the archaeology of the great civilizations in Latin America, China, and Japan ; III. COLONIAL ARCHAEOLOGY ; 8. Colonialism and archaeology in South and South-East Asia ; 9. Classical versus Islamic antiquities in colonial archaeology: the Russian Empire and French North Africa ; 10. Colonialism and the archaeology of the primitive ; IV. NATIONAL ARCHAEOLOGY IN EUROPE ; 11. The early search for a national past in Europe (1789-1820) ; 12. Archaeology and the liberal revolutions (c.1820-1860): nation, race, and language in the study of Europe's past ; 13. Evolutionism and positivism (c.1860-1900) ; 14. Conclusions