Margaret Mead And Samoa: The Making And Unmaking Of An Anthropological Myth
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Condition: Very Good. Jacket: VG. Page Condition: Good. Markings: No markings. Binding condition: Good.
Few academic controversies have shaken the foundations of a discipline quite so dramatically as Derek Freeman's landmark challenge to one of anthropology's most celebrated figures. In Margaret Mead and Samoa, Freeman systematically dismantles the conclusions of Mead's iconic 1928 study Coming of Age in Samoa, arguing that her portrait of a free, conflict-free adolescence in the South Pacific was not a product of rigorous fieldwork, but a myth shaped by the theoretical preconceptions of her mentor, Franz Boas, and the cultural relativism he championed. Freeman draws on decades of his own fieldwork in Samoa, alongside a meticulous re-examination of the historical and ethnographic record, to present a devastating counter-argument that reasserts the role of biology and human nature in shaping behaviour — a position Mead's work had long been used to refute. The book ignited a fierce and enduring debate at the intersection of nature versus nurture, scientific method, and the ethics of fieldwork, forcing scholars to reckon with the question of how much our theoretical frameworks distort what we claim to observe. A landmark of critical anthropology, it leaves the reader questioning not just Mead's conclusions, but the very mechanisms by which scientific consensus is made and unmade.
Author: Derek Freeman
Format: Hardback
Published: 1983, -
Genre: Anthropology
Condition remarks:
Condition: Very Good. Jacket: VG. Page Condition: Good. Markings: No markings. Binding condition: Good.
Few academic controversies have shaken the foundations of a discipline quite so dramatically as Derek Freeman's landmark challenge to one of anthropology's most celebrated figures. In Margaret Mead and Samoa, Freeman systematically dismantles the conclusions of Mead's iconic 1928 study Coming of Age in Samoa, arguing that her portrait of a free, conflict-free adolescence in the South Pacific was not a product of rigorous fieldwork, but a myth shaped by the theoretical preconceptions of her mentor, Franz Boas, and the cultural relativism he championed. Freeman draws on decades of his own fieldwork in Samoa, alongside a meticulous re-examination of the historical and ethnographic record, to present a devastating counter-argument that reasserts the role of biology and human nature in shaping behaviour — a position Mead's work had long been used to refute. The book ignited a fierce and enduring debate at the intersection of nature versus nurture, scientific method, and the ethics of fieldwork, forcing scholars to reckon with the question of how much our theoretical frameworks distort what we claim to observe. A landmark of critical anthropology, it leaves the reader questioning not just Mead's conclusions, but the very mechanisms by which scientific consensus is made and unmade.