Anthropologists and Foreign Relations

Abstract

This well-researched book is the most comprehensive account to date on the interrelation of the work of anthropologists with American government policies and practices during World War II. As background, the book begins with an examination of the more limited roles anthropologists played in World War I. The best-known event concerned a small number of archaeologists who used their fieldwork as cover for spying in Central America, which led to their public denunciation by prominent anthropologist Franz Boas and his censure, as a result, by the American Anthropological Association (AAA). This was the beginning of the debate over the role of anthropologists during wartime. Then comes an examination of the two major professional organizations during World War II, the AAA and the Society for Applied Anthropology (SFAA), the latter created right before the war in 1941. According to Price, by the end of the war the AAA, originally an academic organization, had become a clearinghouse and active adviser for military and intelligence agencies. From its beginning, the goal of the SFAA was to apply anthropological theories and methods to actual problems of society. According to Price, the members saw themselves as having an influential role advising government agencies on how to deal with the world's peoples both during and after the war.