What happened to the Roman soldiers in Britain in the 4th and 5th centuries?
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An Archaeology of Identity: Soldiers and Society in Later Roman Britain
Andrew Gardner
May 2007, 312 pages, $34.95 paperback
What happened to Roman soldiers in Britain during the decline of the empire in the 4th and 5th centuries? Did they withdraw, defect, or go native? More than a question of military history, this becomes the starting point for Andrew Gardner’s incisive exploration of social identity in Roman Britain, in the Roman Empire, and in ancient society. Drawing on the sociological theories of Anthony Giddens and others, Gardner shapes an approach which focuses on the central role of practice in the creation and maintenance of identities—nationalist, gendered, class, and ethnicity. This theory is then tested against the material remains of Roman soldiers in Britain, to show how patterning of stratigraphy, architecture, and artifacts supports his theoretical construct. The result is a retelling of the story of Late Roman Britain sharply at odds with the traditional text-driven histories and a theory of human action which offers much to current debates across the social sciences.
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ISBN: 978-1-59874-226-8 (c), 978-1-59874-227-5 (p)
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$34.95 (U.S.), $34.95 (Canadian),£18.99 (Paperback)
$69.00 (U.S.), $69.00 (Canadian), £36.99 (Cloth)
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