"Bloch’s unfinished study The Historian’s Craft suggests that the drive and genesis behind engagement with archaeological matters rests in the entertainment value and aesthetic pleasure we get when we are drawn into the 'unquestionable fascination of history.' The archaeological imagination and fascination, which wrap the remains of bog people, is often tied, I found, to the magnetic pull of the unfamiliar familiarity that Bloch describes. Bloch offers no apology for the pleasures of historical pursuit and while writing my book I took to heart his warning that we should 'guard against stripping our science of its share of poetry.'"

Recommended by Karin Sanders, Professor of Scandinavian and author of Bodies in the Bog and the Archaeological Imagination.