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Threatening Anthropology: McCarthyism and the FBI's Surveillance of Activist Anthropologists
 
 
Threatening Anthropology: McCarthyism and the FBI's Surveillance of Activist Anthropologists (Paperback)
by David H. Price (Author), David H. Price (Author)
Key Phrases: anthropologist activists, activist anthropologists, loyalty hearings, United States, New York, Richard Morgan (more...)
  4.2 out of 5 stars 12 customer reviews (12 customer reviews)  

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Editorial Reviews
Lesley Gill, Academe
". . . [A]nthropologists and other social scientists should pay close attention to this book and its lessons for the present." --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review
"[A] story that is historically needed and industriously researched. . . ."
--Bruce Ramsey, Seattle Times

"Threatening Anthropology is an opinionated, audacious, and welcome piece of scholarship."
--Barbara McMichael, The Olympian

"This is a depressing, terrifying, and ultimately maddening book! Nevertheless, those interested in anthropology’s past and those concerned with its future need to deal with the pain and anger that reading this book should engender. Indeed, it is incumbent upon them to share with their colleagues and students the lessons learned from Price’s scrupulous research and meticulous documentation. . . . [K]udos to Duke University Press for publishing a book that not too long ago would have been considered too subversive to touch."
--Robert Lawless, Anthropology Review Database

"[M]eticulously detailed. . . . As the Ashcroft justice department threatens to make the McCarthy era look like a stroll in the park, anthropologists and other social scientists should pay close attention to this book and its lessons for the present. Threatening Anthropology will undoubtedly stir debate in some quarters, but if scholars hope to avoid past mistakes, they will think carefully about what Price has to say. This timely, provocative book is long overdue."
--Lesley Gill, Academe

"That Price had the drive, the stamina, and the imagination to pursue this arduous task for more than a decade is an effort for which all anthropologists, and all of those interested in the history of the McCarthy years, must be profoundly grateful. . . . Price's book . . . is an illuminating contribution to 'anthropology's understanding of itself'-one that should be on the shelf of every serious student of the history of U.S. anthropology."
--George W. Stocking Jr., American Anthropologist

"[A] timely and critically important book. . . . [A] wake-up call. . . ."
--William J. Peace, American Ethnologist

"David Price . . . has been carving out a niche as the chief chronicler of the impact of McCarthyism and the FBI on his discipline. . . . His efforts have produced the expectedly chilling glimpse of a federal agency that spied on dozens of scholars . . . and an inquisition and blacklist that directly victimized about a dozen."
--Ellen Schrecker, History

"David Price extends our knowledge of how far the House Un-American Activities Committee . . . were willing to go to harass American academics in the name of security."
--CAUT ACPPU Bulletin

"This exhaustively researched volume convincingly argues that McCarthyism deeply impacted the profession, 'limiting both the questions anthropologists asked and the answers they found,' while demonstrating the pathetic inadequacy of the American Anthropological Association's attempts to shelter academic freedom."
--R.J. Goldstein, CHOICE

"This provocative book represents groundbreaking scholarship on an urgent topic for academics and all other analysts of society, culture and history."
--Tim Sieber, Labor History

"[C]arefully documented. . . . [D]etailed and illuminating. . . ."
--Tim Sieber, North American Dialogue

"Price has produced an important work that scholars interested in the Cold War and the history of anthropology will find of enormous interest. His detailed research from diverse, often difficult to access sources provides a unique and valuable text."
--Susan R. Trencher, Journal of Anthropological Research

"[A]n important contribution to our understanding of the dimensions of McCarthyism. . . ."
--Nils Gilman, Journal of American History

"[C]learly organized and written . . . . Price's study rests on extensive research in primary sources. . . . In the current national climate, we can use all the guidance we can get from such detailed historical research."
--Mark Solovey, American Studies

"This book is a spellbinder, a creative contribution to the history of anthropology, to understanding post-9/11 reactions, and to recalling threads of repression in American society that are continuous. It is a provocative, seminal contribution to scholarly history."
--Laura Nader, The Historian

"Price . . . offers fascinating case studies of the trials and tribulations of several anthropologists. . . . [I]t is his insistence that there was, indeed, something threatening about anthropology that makes his book such a unique contribution."
--Greg Beckett, Left History

"Threatening Anthropology contributes important new sources to the history of anthropology, combining valuable historical material with an interpretive framework that will fuel the intellectual culture war rather than challenge its terms."
--Ellen Herman, North Carolina Historical Review

"[E]xcellent."
--Alexander Cockburn, The Nation

“David Price masterfully reconstructs this dark Cold War history. . . . Threatening Anthropology gives us fair warning of a potentially rough road ahead.”
--Roberto J. González, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

“David Price has produced an extremely important book. Threatening Anthropology illuminates both the history of Anthropology and the political history of the USA from the late 1930s to the present.”
--Susan Drucker-Brown, Cambridge Anthropology

“[A] formidable study. . . . Price provides depth and detail. . . .”
--M. J. Heale, American Historical Review

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

Inside This Book (learn more)
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
anthropologist activists, activist anthropologists, loyalty hearings, loyalty boards, executive hoard, security hearings, scientific freedom
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
United States, New York, Richard Morgan, State Department, Soviet Union, Gene Weltfish, Edgar Hoover, University of Chicago, Oscar Lewis, Kathleen Gough, University of Washington, Daily Worker, Margaret Mead, Security Index, Miss Weltfish, Melville Jacobs, Bernhard Stern, Ruth Benedict, United Nations, Franz Boas, Cora Du Bois, Mary Shepardson, Philleo Nash, President Hallowell, Senator Ferguson
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Customer Reviews
12 Reviews
5 star: 75%  (9)
4 star:    (0)
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2 star: 16%  (2)
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47 of 60 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars An Important New Interpretation of McCarthyism, June 24, 2004
By S. L. Johnson (Austin, Texas) - See all my reviews
Threatening Anthropology tells how the FBI and senate committees spied on and harassed hundreds of anthropologists working for racial equality. Price gathered a lot of new documents and information and his analysis left me thinking in new ways about McCarthyism and how the FBI was used to enforce racist policies in the 1940s and 1950s. Price uses thousands of documents to show that the FBI was used to persecute pioneering scientists threatening widespread bigotry.

Threatening Anthropology is a consuming, thought provoking book. Because there is a lot of dense information I thought I would slowly work my way through this over three or four weeks, but the writing and subject matter pulled me right in and I read it in a few days like I would a well written novel. Price really brings the reader into the story by richly describing the historical setting and then delving into dozens of individual stories telling how several dozen anthropologists like Melville Jacobs, Richard Morgan, Gene Weltfish, Ashley Montague and Margaret Mead were followed and harassed by the FBI because their fights for equality was seen as some sort of foreign communist plot. Price uses extensive FBI documents and correspondence to establish this story and brings an anthropological perspective that made me rethink what McCarthyism was.

I used to wonder if the McCarthy like witch trials could happen again, and Price's detailed analysis and current political developments leave no doubts in my mind that we could do this again very quickly. This book has a lot to say to us all today and deserves to be read by anyone concerned about the abuses of the FBI, CIA and Homeland Security in the war on terrorism, and the past examined here looks a lot like the present. As Price says in the final pages of his book, "Today, much as in the past, free thought, civil liberties and academic freedom are curtailed under conditions of fear as America appears to be preparing for another lengthy ill-defined war." But Price doesn't leave us there, he gives us hope by analyzing past defenses against McCarthyism for us to use in the present.



 
26 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A compelling argument for more activist science, May 5, 2004
By A Customer
Lots of good documentation allows Price to establish just how far the FBI went to torment scientists challenging racist and sexist popular views. It is as if J Edgar Hoover spied on Margaret Mead, Oscar Lewis, Ashley Montague and every other living anthropologist just because they believed that all people are equal. All the FBI files used in this book left a real chill with me, but it also left me more committed to speaking out and being more of an activist.

A good book for any general reader questioning the Patriot Act and who wants to know why the FBI had its powers limited before Congress passed the "Patriot Act."



 
11 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Not just for anthropologists, December 19, 2005
By Jeffrey W. Salyer (Tainan, Taiwan) - See all my reviews
Like another reviewer, I was unable to put down this outstanding and exceptionally disturbing book, a work of scholarship which has a much wider audience than anthropologists alone. I won't repeat the points made by others that Professor Price's work has clear political applications in the present day in academia generally. What I found engrossing was a side of anthropology which rarely or never emerged in my university courses, particularly in those which brought up sociology and anthropology's relation to literature (my own area of study). In the seminars hermeneutics was the focus and the specific emphasis was on signification cross-culturally. I think students (or at least I) got the impression that anthropology was indeed, as Professor Price notes, a science which shuns cultural hierarchies, but that technique was the crux of the authorial problem and that philosophies informing how these techniques came about were in second place. This isn't to say that the committments and philosophies of anthropologists could somehow be subordinated to the idea of the true text, but that an objectivity separate from ideology was, if not possible, at least desired.
I can't remember whether I thought this was reasonable at the time, but in retrospect I see that my notions of how the anthropologist goes about her or his work was certainly limited. This book inspires me to read more in the history of this field and to go to the primary texts which the author provides in such rich abundance.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing book
The author's intent -- to examine the impact of McCarthyism on anthropology -- is a good one. Anthropology attracts a lot of liberal minded people (someone told me that they tend... Read more
Published 6 months ago by Rex Chickeneater

5.0 out of 5 stars Forcefully reasoned, carefully documented
A fresh view not only of the FBI's oppression of American democratic movements, but of the federal government's use of the FBI to maintain racial segregation. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Cran

1.0 out of 5 stars Ignoring Venona Files
Nothing is so disgusting as an author who creates in his own mind, regardless of the evidence, some historical gobbledgook under the guise of science. Read more
Published 9 months ago by D. Barnes

2.0 out of 5 stars Naive and myopic
This book deals with a very important and timely topic. The Cold War had a major impact on academia, and Price is to be applauded for undertaking such an extensive archival... Read more
Published 16 months ago by Leonard

5.0 out of 5 stars Paid to Bite the Hand that Feeds....
Few books can affect a reader so profoundly as this one has me. Price's book has received accolades -- "destined to become a classic," and "belongs on anyone's shelf. Read more
Published 18 months ago by G. Thomas

5.0 out of 5 stars Should be read by all interested in Academic Freedom
Strong scholarship supports this new explanation of attacks on academic freedom and activism in the 1950s. Very impressive research and well written. Read more
Published on June 10, 2005 by TJ Cooper

5.0 out of 5 stars A remarkable story told with unusual levels of documentation
Price hits his readers pretty hard in this brutal tale of shame. This will enrage some readers, but he's justified. Read more
Published on September 26, 2004 by C.L.S.

5.0 out of 5 stars Cold War History
Threatening Anthropology is an important book--one that I hope will signal a signicant change in the way the history of anthropology is written. Read more
Published on June 21, 2004

5.0 out of 5 stars destined to be an anthropological classic
Threatening Anthropology is a beautifully written, meticulously researched account of how J. Edgar Hoover, Senator Joseph McCarthy and others attacked anthropologists educating... Read more
Published on June 8, 2004 by 18273-aq

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