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When they come to model Heaven: big science and the monumental in post-war Britain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Mark Edmonds
Mark Edmonds*
Affiliation:
*Department of Archaeology, University of York, King's Manor, York YO1 7EP, UK (Email: mre500@york.ac.uk)
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Abstract

How useful is the archaeology of the present? In this tour de force the author takes an iconic structure of modern times – the radio telescope at Jodrell Bank – and reveals the conjuncture of its origins and its subsequent parallel lives in science, war, politics and the imagination. The modern example allows us to get behind the scenes and under the covers – into the mentality of monumentality, as it has probably always been, proxy for the zeitgeist. Sceptics should read on…

Keywords

Britaintwentieth centurymonumentality
Type
Research
Information
Antiquity , Volume 84 , Issue 325 , September 2010 , pp. 774 - 795
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 2010

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