This important work of archaeological theory challenges us to reconsider our ideas about the nature of things, past and present, arguing that objects themselves possess a dynamic presence that we must take into account if we are to understand the world we and they inhabit.

Chapter 1. Introduction Chapter 2. Brothers in Arms? Archaeology and Material Culture Studies Chapter 3. Material Culture as Text: Scenes from a Troubled Engagement Chapter 4. The Phenomenology of Things Chapter 5. Tacit Matter: The Silencing of Things Chapter 6. Temporality and Memory: How Things Remember Chapter 7. Living with Things - Matter in Place Chapter 8. In Defense of Things Chapter 9 Bibliography

Much recent theoretical discourse in archaeology is focused on active, relational objects conceived as entanglements,assemblages, and bundles of things. In Defense of Things is a timely, highly readable explication of the ideas and philosophy behind this turn towards object ontologies. Social scientists and particularly archaeologists interested in materiality studies could not ask for a more lucid introduction to the issues in play. Olsen’s central thesis is echoed in recent works by Nicole Boivin, Ian Hodder, Chris Webmoor and Tim Witmore, and Carl Knappett and Lambros Malafouris, among others. Inspired by Merleau-Ponty as well as by Latour, Olsen argues that it is time for social scientists to transcend the material/ideal split that is the heritage of Cartesian philosophy, and to give things their proper due as central to human existence. His self-avowed ‘bricolage’ approach to the topic contains very clear, concise discussions of key literature and ideas, thankfully without the hubristic language that distracts from the writings of some of his colleagues. . . I highly recommend this book as an elegant, well-written, well-reasoned introduction to the recent turn toward object ontologies in archaeology.