A dispiriting trend, which I imagine is about 10 or 15 years old, is the insistence by archaeologists that their field work have a current angle which gives it relevance to John and Jane Q. Public. Thus this dongish, hectoring quote from a professor at the University of Facebook Mom, presented in situ from the Daily Telegraph:
Archaeology can be bloodless, what with its datacentric analyses and somewhat arid specialties - studying the diet of 9th century Venetians won't get anyone a spot on Joe Rogan - but the tangible nature of its finds more than make up for this even when they're not the archaeologists' focus. Just let shit speak for itself. People like old stuff that's been dug out of the ground. Museums feature tons of it and people seem to enjoy looking at it without virtually any context or moral lesson.
This is leeching into classics as well. I tried reading a recent "biography" of a Germanic invader of the later Western Roman Empire* but had to hurl the thing across the room after 30 pages. The book kept hammering the strained metaphor of modern immigration, which is fine if you insist, but when this came after several factual errors an amateur such as I could discern, I had to give it the sack.
*Since I believe the book was a good faith effort by the author, I won't single it out by name, but you don't have to be Howard Carter to unearth it.
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