THE SOCIAL SCIENCES & THEORIES OF RACE Format: Paperback

In this collection of seven essays, Williams (African American and African Diaspora studies, Indiana U.) explores how ideas of race and race relations developed in the work of a collection of prominent anthropologists, sociologists, and other social thinkers. The opening chapter unearths the subaltern traditions of black Westerner ethnologies and ethnographies, followed by thematically related discussions of the place of race and racism in the cultural theory of anthropologist Franz Boas and the work of George Washington Ellis as an example of the subaltern tradition of African American anthropology. He then sets out a theory of social change that emphasizes the role of outside political and social forces on the decline of racist thinking in the social sciences, later exploring this theme as it specifically relates to the intellectual evolution of Booker T. Washington, Ulysses G. Weatherly's arguments about African American culture, and the libertarian-conservative uplift ideology of Monroe Nathan Work. These general themes are explored in more specific cases. Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)