soon ®nd a place among the most important and in¯uential studies of the last half millennium of global environmental change. Roderik P. Neumann Florida International University doi:10.1006/jhge.2002.0426, available online at http://www.idealibrary.com on William O. Frazer and Andrew Tyrrell (Eds), Social Identity in Early Medieval Britain (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 2000. Pp. x283. £45.00 hardback) In an age of devolution and ethnic cleansing, it is not surprising that much academic attention has been directed towards the formation, reproduction and mutation of human identity. Importantly, this ¯urry of academic activity has not only sought to explore the contemporary forms of individual and group identity, but has also attempted to chart and explain their historic manifestations. The collection of papers that appear in Social Identity in Early Medieval Britain is one such contribution that attempts to explore the historical geographies of individual and group identities in Britain. The volume draws together a broad range of themed contributions, each addressing different aspects of human identity in early medieval Britain in a theoretically informed manner. The conceptual thread that binds the contributions together is their understanding of social identity as something that incorporates elements of individual and group identity at one and the same time. They emphasise, in effect, both the agency of individuals to mould their own identity and the constraining effects of group identities on this process. The editors and contributors alike are to be commended for their efforts to ground their empirical work on solid conceptual foundations, something that has been lacking in more descriptive accounts of the historical geographies of the early medieval period. Admittedly, there is some conceptual slippage in places, for instance, in the recurring references to the ``national identity'' of the early modern period. Nonetheless, on the whole, the various contributions demonstrate a clear and laudable commitment to theorising the nature of social identity during the early medieval period, as well as illustrating it empirically. It is this effort to engage with theories of social identity that means that the volume will be of interest to a broad spectrum of social scientists, and not only to those limited number of individuals whose academic focus lies in studying the early medieval period. Two of the more interesting contributions to the volume also show the thematic breadth of the book. Yorke, in her chapter on ``Political and Ethnic Identity'', explores the more traditional aspects of group identity in Anglo-Saxon England. Her main argument is that group senses of identity during this period were intimately linked to the various royal houses that existed at the time. In effect, notions of group identity in this period were not viewed through the ``objective'' lens of ethnicity, custom or language but were rather political creations manipulated by societal leaders. Though this is, at heart, a rather instrumentalist argument, it helps to emphasise the contingent nature of group identities during this, or indeed any, time period. Kn usel and Ripley's contribution, though possibly more eclectic, is just as fascinating. In their chapter they discuss the individual corporeal identity of the berdache or ``man-woman'' of early medieval England. The starting point for their argument is the archaeological anomalies that are present in some graves of the period. In these, human remains that are apparently indicative of one gender are associated with the grave goods of the opposite gender. Drawing on more recent anthropological evidence, they come to the fascinating conclusion that there may have existed aÐpossibly shamanisticÐgroup of individuals in Anglo-Saxon England linked to a third gender grouping of menwomen. Kn usel and REVIEWS 293