Mohan Ambikaipaker’s “Political Blackness in Multiracial Britain” is distinctive both for its setting and for its personal engagement. Ambikaipaker practiced “activist anthropology” by carrying out “observant participation” as a caseworker for the Newham Monitoring Project, a community activism organization, over the course of two years. The book alternates between anecdotal accounts of racism and the author’s theoretical and historical framing of those accounts. Ambikaipaker’s writing is compelling, his theoretical grounding is thorough, his empathy is apparent, and the fieldwork underpinning it is considerable and consequential.