In his 1948 work "A Study of Archaeology", recently minted Harvard Ph.D. Walter W Taylor delivered the strongest and most substantial critique of American archaeology ever published. He created many enemies with his dissection of the research programs of America's leading scholars, who took it as a personal affront. Taylor subsequently saw his research pushed to the margins, his ideas censured, and his students punished.

Publicly humiliated at the 1985 Society for American Archaeology meeting, he suffered ridicule until his death in 1997. Nearly everyone in the archaeological community read Taylor's book at the time, and despite the negative reaction, many were influenced by it. Few young scholars dared to directly engage and build on his "conjunctive approach," yet his suggested methods nevertheless began to be adopted and countless present-day authors highlight his impact on the 1960s formation of the "New Archaeology".

In Prophet, Pariah, and Pioneer, peers, colleagues, and former students offer a critical consideration of Taylor's influence and legacy. Neither a festschrift nor a mere analysis of his work, the book presents an array of voices exploring Taylor and his influence, sociologically and intellectually, as well as the culture of American archaeology in the second half of the twentieth century.