Promotional Information

An analysis of how anthropology has historically viewed African Americans and Native Americans differently.

Table of Contents

Preface: Questions ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction 1
1. Research, Reform, and Racial Uplift 33
2. Fabricating the Authentic and the Politics of the Real 66
3. Race, Relevance, and Daniel G. Brinton's Ill-fated Bid for Prominence 117
4. The Cult of Franz Boas and His "Conspiracy" to Destroy the White Race 156
Notes 221
Works Cited 235
Index 265

About the Author

Lee D. Baker is Dean of Academic Affairs in the Trinity College of Arts and Sciences and Associate Professor of Cultural Anthropology, Sociology, and African and African American Studies at Duke University. He is the author of From Savage to Negro: Anthropology and the Construction of Race, 1896–1954 and the editor of Life in America: Identity in Everyday Experience.

Reviews

"In these fascinating essays, Lee D. Baker interrogates several key dichotomies (culture/race, Native Americans/African Americans, anthropology/sociology) to cast new light on the history of American anthropology. He asks anthropologists to think again about the peculiar combination of progressive and conservative arguments that anthropological theories of culture and race seem always to reproduce."--Richard Handler, University of Virginia "In this smart and provocative book, Lee D. Baker takes on a terribly important topic: the transformations in the discipline of anthropology as it relates to race and culture. Among other things, Baker raises very good questions about how anthropology 'treats' Native Americans versus African Americans. The answers aren't going to make anyone feel good, but they are going to make people think. I learned a lot from this thoughtful work."--Jonathan Scott Holloway, co-editor of Black Scholars on the Line: Race, Social Science, and American Thought in the Twentieth Century "Lee D. Baker's new book astutely and convincingly argues for new ways of reading how anthropology has treated the racial politics of culture and the cultural politics of race. These precise, masterfully researched and elegantly written vignettes map new vistas for understanding the critical crucible in which Native American and African American experiences illuminate each other through academic research and institutions. Baker's insights are fresh, basic, and important."--Robert Warrior, President, Native American and Indigenous Studies Association