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Rarely do science and literature come together in the same book. When they do -- as in Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species, for example -- they become classics, quoted and studied by scholars and the general public alike.

Margaret Mead accomplished this remarkable feat not once but several times, beginning with Coming of Age in Samoa. It details her historic journey to American Samoa, taken where she was just twenty-three, where she did her first fieldwork. Here, for the first time, she presented to the public the idea that the individual experience of developmental stages could be shaped by cultural demands and expectations. Adolescence, she wrote, might be more or less stormy, and sexual development more or less problematic in different cultures. The "civilized" world, she taught us had much to learn from the "primitive." Now this groundbreaking, beautifully written work as been reissued for the centennial of her birth, featuring introductions by Mary Pipher and by Mead's daughter, Mary Catherine Bateson.

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Someone in Samoa before Mead

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Much of the debate about the accuracy of Mead's characterizations of Samoans suffers from two difficulties. 1. Criticism of her work by Samoans themselves is attacked with, "well they would say that," the assumption being that Mead is honest and they are not, or that Mead understood their society better after a few months of living there than do those who've lived there all their lives. Snobbery, yes. But almost every profession suffers from a 'we versus the masses' snobbery, including anthropology. Those would be Mead's defenders. 2. Criticism by other anthropologists who have spent time in Samoa and differ with Mead is attacked with the claim that Samoan culture may have changed since Mead's visit, perhaps under the influence of Christian missionaries. Again, Samoans who can remember those pre-missionary times are branded liars. In one sense, this isn't that bad a call. If virtually all Samoans are liars today, then why should anyone believe what Mead claims they told her? Bragging about sexual conquests is at least as common as covering them up. And keep in mind that Mead is just one person, and one with a less than sterling reputation for integrity. Believing Samoans over just her isn't that hard to justify. But moving beyond that, what's obviously needed in this dispute is someone from the outside (negating #1), who visited Samoa before Mead did (negating #2). It would also help if such a person were scientifically trained and in a position to know about the intimate details of their lives. Such a person actually exists, or to be more accurately, did exist in the late 1980s, when I was teaching a computer class at the Bremerton Naval Shipyards across Puget Sound from Seattle. For lunch, I dropped into the officers club and began to talk with an elderly couple at the next table. Finding out that I was a writer, the man asked if I knew how he could publish something he felt might be important. He was a retired US Navy doctor and had been stationed in Samoa before Mead arrived there. He'd spent quite a bit of time providing medical care for the Samoan people and his memories were clear. He offered precisely the independent check on Mead's accuracy that's needed. What did he claim? Mead, he said, was wrong, and her description of Samoan sexual behavior was inaccurate. I encouraged him to find someone willing to publish his experiences in Samoa, but it's one of regrets of my life that I didn't get his name and address and try to help get published. It would be a major contribution to a debate that now seems to be fated to go on without end. **** I might add that you can find a similar deceptions in our own society. Almost a century ago, Margaret Sanger, founder of today's Planned Parenthood, was claiming that America "repressed" sexual knowledge, particularly by keeping it from women. That's rather bizarre, since at that time the nation was still heavily agricultural, and you can hardly keep a knowledge of sex from anyone who's grown up around a barnyard. But because we're a literate society, publishing books on almost every topic, we don't have to depend on anthropologists visiting us from outside and reporting on what they think they saw. It's possible to find books that offer a snapshot of what a culture believed at a certain time. And in this case, there's more than ample evidence that Sanger was lying. I have a copy of a book (published in Ohio) called Eugenics or The Laws of Sex Life and Heredity by a Professor T. W. Shannon. It professes on the cover to be "profusely illustrated," and was published in 1917, the very year Sanger began her career as a birth controller. It even includes a commendation from a Mrs. Mary E. Teats of the Women's Christian Temperance Union. In short, if the topic is sex, read with a healthy dose of skepticism. That's particularly true of Mead and Sanger. --Michael W. Perry, The Pivot of Civilization in Historical Perspective: The Birth Control Classic

The master at work

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Dr. Meade truly was one of the most well-known American Anthropologists in the 20th Century. Her appeal to the common person through her writings in popular magazines sparked the interest on Anthropological studies for many people from all walks of life. This book was her first masterpiece. This book is a requirement for any student of Anthropology or anyone else who wishes to learn how to take data from interviews and other observations and put them on paper.

This book is a LIE!!!!!!	Customer Rating:
Please do not buy this book. It is a lie about Samoans. How could she have learned to speak well enough to comunicate with Samoans in 5 months. watch "Margaret Mead and Samoa" or read Derek Freeman's work against the book. The book is all a lie!

Somwhere between Freeman's vitriol and an ameteur' s efforts

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I was the Medical Director of American Samoa a few years after Mead's six month in Ta'u, a village in the Manu'a group and spent over two years there. On my trips to Manu'a I found and talked to Chief Tufele and those Mead worked with. With two years study of Hawaiian I was able to converse with them quite easily. Mead studied Samoan for only six weeks in Pago Pago. There are many errors and self-projections in the work of a 23-year old girl fresh out of college on her first field trip, but not enough to incur Freeman's wrath. About half of his criticisms are not true.

Let's not be hasty

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In answer to "Mead's Samoa hoax has been exposed" (see below), which is based largely upon Derek Freeman's work. Derek Freeman's work has also engendered debate, given its own problems. Both methodology and (inevitably) conclusions have been shown to be suspect. For instance: some of Mead's subjects survived long enough into old age to be questioned by Freeman, whereupon they stated that they lied to Mead regarding their past behavior. With what certainty can it be presumed that they are telling the truth now? But I shan't go on. Suffice it to say that it is of little use to base a critique of one book (Mead's) based upon another of equally unsound and uncertain scholarship (Freeman's). It is simply dishonest of the writer of that review to attempt to discredit Mead by quoting Freeman, while (conveniently) omitting to mention that Freeman's work is not accepted either. Without being able to either substantiate Mead or debunk her, her book remains fascinating for its own sake, more than for its admittedly tenuous conclusions, and is interesting not least for the insight that it gives into the nature of its author.