Billie Melman. 2020. Empires of antiquities: modernity and the rediscovery of the ancient Near East, 1914–1950. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 978-0-19882-455-8 hardback £75.

Abstract

Billie Melman's exploration of the "regime of antiquities" (p. 9) and the internationalisation of the (material) past offers an important contribution to a wide range of fields, including the history of the interwar period, the history of archaeology and mandate politics and mechanised technology. By linking her extensive reading to research on modernity, media histories, and literary and cultural studies, the author has rightly identified the early twentieth century as a crucial period for the development of archaeology in the Southwest Asian/North African (SWANA) region and the importance of the past in the construction of modernity.