Stonehenge Complete: Archaeology, History, Heritage - Christopher Chippindale - Hardcover Book

This book is ill-served by its publisher/back cover copy: it's not really about Stonehenge, but about "Stonehenge," the construct of imagination and research in English thought from Medieval times to the present. It is also very, very dry, up till the final chapters, when the author rolls up his sleeves and takes on academic opponents.

A historiography of "Stonehenge" is a valuable thing, but even here, the book falls for being under- (well, actually, *not*) theorized. There's a lot of narrative description, but little to no effort to extract meaning from it, or to relate various era's "Stonehenges" to a greater notion of meaning-making about antiquity.

On the positive side, the book is a lovely artifact, well worth the paper. The stock is substantial and glossy, and illustrations clear and extensive.

Useful as a source for in-depth study of particular periods of antiquarian/scientific/artistic/mystical thought, but there are many more readable works that actually address the Neolithic context of Stonehenge itself.