ABSTRACT
Recent research in Britain and Ireland has been extensive, combining theoretically driven studies with large-scale developer-funded excavations producing vast amounts of new data that has allowed new opportunities for analysis and interpretation in a distinctive tradition aware of social theory but with a strong link to history. From the transition from the medieval world through the Renaissance, Reformation, industrialisation, globalisation, and capitalism, the material world was transformed. The people of Britain and Ireland were major contributors to (and receivers of) global change, and harnessed resources from around the world to alter production, consumption, and social practice. Recent studies have investigated these changes in urban and rural, civilian and military, secular and religious, and elite and popular cultural contexts, with many young scholars coming to the fore in the academy, state, and commercial sectors.
