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Rating: 
Summary: Anthropology in the public interest
Review: Dr. Barker has told a story that most Americans never learn, and our government still tries to hide: that the U.S. tested nuclear weapons with full knowledge that the Marshallese people would be affected by the fallout and associated radiation. Using innovative anthropological oral history and linguistics analysis techniques, Dr. Barker demonstrates how the Marshallese have endured the physical, political, and cultural impacts of the U.S. nuclear weapons testing program on Bikini and Enewetok, and developed institutions and cultural adaptations to advance beyond victim status. A must-read for any serious scholar of the Cold War and its human consequences.
Rating:
Summary: Marshall Island struggles onward despite Cold War legacy
Review: Dr. Barker's fascinating work chronicles the efforts of a tiny nation to overcome environmental devastation at the hands of the United States. The challenges faced by the Marshallese people include environmental contamination from carcinogens such as nuclear waste (from American testing of nuclear weapons) and PCBs (from multinational corporations). Despite the misery and devastating caused by their supposed protectors (the U.S. government), Dr. Barker accurately describes the boundless determination, decency and generosity, which the Marshallese people share with all. As Dr. Barker correctly notes, this resiliency will prove essential to the citizens of the Marshall Islands as they continue to face critical challenges such as economic globalization, nuclear and environmental remediation, and global warming. Any of which, could prove catastrophic in the decades to come.
Rating: 
Summary: Errors and biases
Review: What could have been a change-making ethnography is instead an error filled and one sided rant. Barker makes several glaring factual errors that a good editor should have caught, not the readers. She is so clearly biased in favor of the Marshallese (who admittedly were wronged) that she fails to present both sides of the issues and history and she turns readers against her positions in the process. Many important points lose their impact when she lectures us over and over again on what the 'evil' US government ought to give the Marshall Islanders as restitution. Her great knowledge of a unique and interesting people is lost in the political rhetoric. Not a well balanced ethnography.
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