The History of Archaeology

Does anyone have a recommendation for a book on the history of the field of archaeology? Too often, the info you find about archaeologists or the profession is only piece by piece within a larger discussion of the ancient finds. Thanks!

Paul Bahn's The Cambridge Illustrated History of Archaeology is one example. Gordon Willey's History of American Archaeology is another.

I would also recommend The Rape of the Nile by Brian M. Fagan for a different view. This book focuses on Egypt and shows how archaeology evolved there.

The late Bruce G. Trigger's A History of Archaeological Thought is popular in the field. (Well, among those of an anthropological bent. I don't know about classicists.) It takes a global perspective, unlike Willey & Sabloff's History of American Archaeology, plus it considers the societal uses to which archaeology has been, and is, put. It's not a quick read, but neither is it difficult.

Also Archaeology: Theories, Methods, and Practice
by Colin Renfrew is similar to Trigger. We are using it in my grad program, although I used trigger in undergrad.

I'm currently (slowly) working through Alison Wylie's Thinking from Things: Essays in the Philosophy of Archaeology. Overall, it's a very dense read, but I'm finding it an intriguing history of archaeological thought in the US.

Gods, Graves, and Scholars is on my list of ten favorite books and I read it almost 40 years ago. It is very Eurocentric but considering when it was written it is not to bad if you think of it that way, as a history of European archeology. It deals with the stories of the people that made the discoveries that I had heard about since childhood like Troy and Pompeii.

Great Excavations by John Romer. great tv presenter as well. love his enthusiasm

A Short History of Archaeology by Glyn Daniel lives up to its title.