Abstract

In the last 20 years, power, control and resistance have emerged as popular themes in archaeological approaches to the modern period. Institutions like workhouses and industrial complexes have been well studied through a Marxist-inspired lens, and archaeologists have written about power relationships and hierarchies, domination and resistance and subaltern narratives. Jonny Geber’s bioarchaeology of the Irish Famine and Sarah Cowie’s intensive study of a former industrial settlement in Michigan contribute appreciably to this wider literature, and each situate themselves clearly within these narratives of power and resistance in historical archaeology. Accessible to scholars of the nineteenth century outside of archaeology, both books represent true interdisciplinary approaches to the nineteenth century, a formative period in industrial capitalism. The impact of an increasingly capitalist economy is clearly represented in the economic and social context of both the Irish famine and the industrial Midwest.