"<i>From Boas to Black Power</i> thoughtfully examines the contradictions and tensions of anthropology's last 100 years. Using Boasian interventions on race and culture as a valuable starting point, this important book explains how thinking about race/racism in anthropology (and in the wider public culture) pivots on various assumptions about liberalism that link race to American identity in ways that haunt the country as much as ever these days."—John L. Jackson, Jr., University of Pennsylvania

"This is an important intervention in the history of U.S. anthropology, particularly the history of anthropological debates on race, racism, and the intellectual impact of Black Power as a social movement. Mark Anderson's interrogation of the liberal anti-racism associated largely with Boasians seriously engages the critiques and alternative scholarship of William Willis, Diane Lewis, Charles & Betty Lou Valentine, and St. Clair Drake, who belonged to an earlier decolonizing generation that cleared the ground for later critical anti-racist projects. This insightful analysis un-silences significant aspects of anthropology's past and illuminates how dominant liberal modalities of anti-racism—regardless of intention—sustain the epistemic, cultural, and structural power of white supremacy, an obstacle to justice, well-being, and liberation."—Faye V. Harrison, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

"What [Anderson] selects is essential, informative, and critical. His significant contribution to the history of anthropology and American liberalism is the way he combines his razor-sharp analysis of text and context <i>and</i> paradox and contradiction."—Lee D. Baker, <i>Transforming Anthropology</i>