Never Meant to Survive is one of the most provocative and compelling pieces of analysis and criticism that I've ever read in anthropology. The book rises to the intellectual and political challenge being articulated in transnational arenas such as the 2001 World Conference against Racism, which represented only a brief moment in the ongoing struggles of oppressed peoples-with African descendants conspicuous among them-to mobilize against crimes against their humanity. The common yet, at the same time, differentiated ground that African Americans and Afro-Brazilians occupy is not an abstraction or cerebral game in this work. Vargas shows how transnational approaches to research and social analysis as well as to community organizing are imperative for both deeper understanding and more effective forms of anti-racist agency.