Book excerpt: Marxist theory has been an undercurrent in western social science since the late nineteenth century. It came into prominence in the social sciences in the 1960s and 1970s and has had a profound effect on history, sociology and anthropology. This book represents an attempt to gather together Marxist perspectives in archaeology and to examine whether indeed they represent advances in archaeological theory. The papers in this volume look forward to the growing use of Marxist theory by archaeologists; as well as enriching archaeology as a discipline they have important implications for sociology and anthropology through the addition of a long-term, historical perspective. This is a book primarily for undergraduates and research students and their teachers in departments of archaeology and anthropology but it should also be of interest to historians, sociologists and geographers.