A critical investigation into how modern myths shape interpretations of the ancient past.Lost City, Found Pyramid delves into the fascinating world of sensational “pseudoarchaeology,” from perennial discoveries of lost pyramids or civilizations to contemporary ghost-hunting and reality TV. It examines how nonscientific pursuit of myths and legends warps both public perceptions of archaeology and of human history itself.A collection of twel...

In this landmark book, experienced scholars take a retrospective look at the developing routes that have brought American archaeologists into the 21st century.In 1996, the Society for American Archaeology's Committee on the History of Archaeology established a biennial symposiumnamed after Gordon R. Willey, one of the fathers of American archaeology, to focus on the history of the discipline. This volume grew out of thesecond symposium, presen...

Writing the history of American archaeology, especially concerning eighteenth and nineteenth-century arguments, is not always as straightforward or simple as it might seem. Archaeology’s trajectory from an avocation, to a semi-profession, to a specialized, self-conscious profession was anything but a linear progression. The development of American archaeology was an organic and untidy process, which emerged from the intellectual tradition of antiquarianism and closely allied itself with th...

Albert Taylor Bledsoe (1809--1877), a principal architect of the South's "Lost Cause" mythology, remains one of the Civil War generation's most controversial intellectuals. In Albert Taylor Bledsoe: Defender of the Old South and Architect of the Lost Cause, Terry A. Barnhart sheds new light on this provocative figure.Bledsoe gained a respectable reputation in the 1840s and 1850s as a metaphysician and speculative theologian. His two major works, An Examination of President Edwards' ...