As the foundations of the modern world were being laid at the beginning of the 19th century, Annapolis, Maryland, identified itself as the Ancient City. This unusual appellation has served Annapolis into the present as a city that has consistently defined and redefined for itself what being ancient means. The process of historical recognition and preservation that has played out in Annapolis provides valuable insights into the way modern Americans in general have come to know and use the past.

Shows the multiple histories that have been made in Annapolis as the city encountered challenge to the "status quo"

1 History and Tradition, Archaeology and Authenticity.- The Struggles of the Past in the Present.- An Archaeology of History and Tradition.- 2 Historical Process and Narrative in Annapolis, Maryland and the Chesapeake.- The Historical Process of Annapolis.- A Narrative History of Annapolis.- The Bordley-Randall Site and Archaeological Research Design.- Conclusion.- 3 Monuments: The Finishing of Annapolis.- Plantation Culture and Class Formation in the Chesapeake.- The Foundation of Thomas Bordley's House.- The Completions of Stephen Bordley.- The Time of Patriarchy.- Finishing Annapolis.- Conclusion.- 4 Memorials: The Making of the Ancient City.- The Making of a Modern Maryland.- Slavery and Southern Culture.- The Forgotten City: Annapolis, 1815-1845.- Being the Ancient City.- The Randall Landscape in the Era of Decline.- The Naval Academy and the Introduction of Modernity.- Conclusion: Conflict in Elite Identity.- 5 Objects: The Modernization of the Ancient.- American Geography and the Commodification of Place.- Antimodernism and the Objectification of History.- The Modernization of Annapolis.- Modernizing the Ancient Landscape.- Conclusion: Necessaries and Nuisances in 1900.- 6 Moments of Danger and the Practice of Archaeology.- Six Ruptures.- Against Archaeological Experience.- Notes.- References.