The product of collaboration with, and the sponsorship of, the American Anthropological Association, the collection offers a wide range of perspectives as a means of understanding how various subfields of anthropology can provide critical contexts for the exploration of cultural diversity in the United States. The contributors to this landmark critical reader rethink diversity, identity politics, and multiculturalism, and provide fundamental tools for the analysis and understanding of critical political issues in the United States today. Important areas of discussion include re-examining the social and political history of the United States, establishing a framework for the understanding of inequality, and confronting simplistic images of diversity in an effort to enrich and deepen understanding of difference in the United States.