Year: 2024
Type: book-review
Abstract: Life at the MarginsThis New Book Chronicle looks at 'Life in the margins', a subject often less studied than the more obvious cultural hot spots but one which has been gaining interest in recent studies, especially due to its application to modern challenges in marginal or border regions; for example, see the 'Borderlands debate' in Antiquity last August (Hanscam & Buchanan 2023).The four books reviewed here all deliver the perspectives of people living in the margins of some sort.The first two explore the political margins of larger entities and how groups developed different strategies to successfully remain partially independent, with examples from across the Old and New World and the Near East.The third book helps to identify the new Bronze Age 'Spacva-Lubanj' group in eastern Croatia through exploring unusual burials at the margins of larger cultural groups.The last book takes us to the most remote place discussed here: the monastery site of Skellig Michael off the coast of Ireland, where early Christian monks chose to live an ascetic life battling the elements.In all cases the margins studied are revealed to be more zones for contact and crucibles of change and, in the contrasting case of Skellig Michael, places where pilgrims and subsequently tourists-including Luke Skywalker-seek to recapture some of the spirituality and isolation.These types of experiences have become more and more difficult to find in our modern anytime-everywhere-connected world where many people long for some reflective time on their own.Reading these books makes one wonder if we now more than ever need these remote places away from overpowering systems, a space to think and in order to develop new ideas.Alicia M. Boswell & Kyle A. Knabb (ed.).2022.Life at the margins of the state: comparative landscapes from the Old and New Worlds.Louisville: University Press of Colorado; 978-1-64642-294-4 hardback $67.This book is an excellent starting point for researching people living in marginal (political) landscapes as it offers many ideas and perspectives.The contributions deliver a wide scope from Nubia in the fourth and third millennia BC to medieval Iceland and reaching as far as the Americas.As diverse as the time periods and landscapes of the chapters are, they all look at societies at the margins of larger states.They examine and detail the political, social and economic differences to define the character of these often less-studied areas or moments in time.A passionate and well-written Introduction by the editors guides the reader into the subject where the margins are loosely defined as places in between or on the edge of complex and large entities.But instead of the traditional centre-periphery narratives where these
Source: Antiquity
DOI: 10.15184/aqy.2024.7
Author: Marion Uckelmann
Language: English
Subfield: Archeology
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,450
OpenAlex ID: W4392787643