American things, American material culture, and American archaeology are the themes of this book. The authors use goods used or made in America to illuminate issues such as tenancy, racism, sexism, and regional bias. Contributors utilize data about everyday objects - from tin cans and bottles to namebrand items, from fish bones to machinery - to analyze the way American capitalism works. Their cogent analyses take us literally from broken dishes to the international economy. Especially notable chapters examine how an archaeologist formulates questions about exploitation under capitalism, and how the study of artifacts reveals African-American middle class culture and its response to racism.

Inhalt
I. Issues In A Historical Archaeology Devoted To Studying Capitalism.- 1. Setting Some Terms for Historical Archaeologies of Capitalism.- II. Where The Questions Come From.- 2. Why Should Historical Archaeologists Study Capitalism? The Logic of Question and Answer and the Challenge of Systemic Analysis.- 3. Historical Archaeology and Identity in Modern America.- 4. The Contested Commons: Archaeologies of Race, Repression, and Resistance in New York City.- III. Integration Into Capitalism And Impoverishment.- 5. Ex Occidente Lux? An Archaeology of Later Capitalism in the Nineteenth-Century West.- 6. Archaeology and the Challenges of Capitalist Farm Tenancy in America.- 7. A Bold and Gorgeous Front: The Contradictions of African America and Consumer Culture.- 8. Ceramics from Annapolis, Maryland: A Measure of Time Routines and Work Discipline.- IV. Beyond North America.- 9. Historical, Archaeology, Capitalism.