Anthropologists are speaking up (finally), but are they saying enough? A review of Besteman, C. and Gusterson, H. (Eds), Why America's Top Pundits Are Wrong: Anthropologists Talk Back

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to review the book, Why America's Top Pundits Are Wrong: Anthropologists Talk Back.Design/methodology/approachThe author, himself an anthropologist, evaluates how a group of anthropologists responds to popular right‐of‐center pundits.FindingsWhy America's Top Pundits Are Wrong: Anthropologists Talk Back is just as instructive for what it reveals about the current condition of anthropology – and, for that matter, left academia – as for what it says about the lack of anthropological sophistication in popular books that purport to tell us what is right or wrong with the world and where it is heading. Freighted with postmodernism, the influence of Michel Foucault in particular, present‐day anthropology makes assumptions not unlike those of the Straussians of the far right. Thus, our left‐of‐center anthropologists have trouble locating what is so objectionable about reactionary conservatism and, at the same time, difficulties in assessing social conditions, both at home and abroad. The author ends with sketching an anthropology that would pay more attention to the psychological and environmental costs of globalization.Originality/valueNotes that the 12 contributions dispense with academic jargon and try to reestablish a public presence for anthropology – a format which may reach a wider public.