Book Review of An Unauthorized Companion to American Archaeological Theory to appear in Current Anthropology, 2020 Don’t Panic. It’s Just Theory. Mark D. McCoy Department of Anthropology, Southern Methodist University, P.O. Box 750336, Dallas, Texas 75275, USA (mdmccoy@smu.edu). 7 X 19 An Unauthorized Companion to American Archaeological Theory. By Lars Fogelin. Self-published, Academia.edu, 2019. “Archaeologists typically present theory as dry, esoteric, abstract, and, more than anything, just so fucking serious” (xii). This is how Lars Fogelin introduces his irreverent “unauthorized” book on archaeological theory. Anyone impressed by their own importance and entrenched, or thin-skinned, about theory, would do well to stop there. This book is not for them anyway. It is meant as a companion for students in an upper level undergraduate or graduate class on theory who are about to read some of the most incomprehensible things ever written about archaeology. Fogelin’s mocking of the godawful pretentiousness of theory is relentless but it is also surgical and purposeful. He demotes theory to being “the stuff archaeologists do to move from data to understanding dead people,” (xvii) to show it is not outside the practice of archaeology, nor is it gospel handed down from on high, but something to be questioned, considered, and importantly, tinkered with. I have taught archaeological theory for more than a decade now, and as much as I hate to change my syllabus, I am going to have to, because this book will increase the quality of discourse in seminars. The typical American graduate level class on theory today includes on its readings list: one or more books on the intellectual history of archaeology; the canon of classic papers on theory; lengthy review papers; and perhaps a few readings covering whatever is currently in intellectual fashion. An Unauthorized Companion, the first book of its kind, is explicitly not a short-cut, but rather is designed to be read alongside those primary readings to keep newbies from getting lost, or intimidated, or seduced, by theory. It is an in-depth review by a critic who knows the topic extremely well. And while it is one person’s opinion, and therefore includes their particular pet-peeves and blind spots, it helps the uninitiated appreciate what is good, or bad, and why.