Coming Of Age In Samoa
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:
Book: Good
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Good
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
What does it truly mean to grow up — and is the turbulence of adolescence an inevitable fact of human nature, or merely a product of culture? First published in 1928, Margaret Mead's groundbreaking anthropological study Coming of Age in Samoa sets out to answer this question by immersing the reader in the lives of young Samoan women on the island of Ta'ū, documenting their passage from childhood into adulthood with remarkable intimacy and scholarly rigour. Mead argues, with compelling force, that the stress and conflict so characteristic of adolescence in Western societies is far from universal — and that the relaxed, permissive social structures of Samoan life produce a markedly different, and far smoother, transition into adulthood. A landmark text in the history of cultural anthropology, Coming of Age in Samoa established Mead as one of the most important and controversial social scientists of the twentieth century, igniting a debate about nature versus nurture that continues to reverberate across academic disciplines to this day. Her prose is accessible yet authoritative, blending rich ethnographic observation with bold theoretical argument in a way that speaks equally to the specialist and the curious general reader. Whether one accepts or challenges her conclusions, the questions Mead poses — about freedom, conformity, sexuality, and what society demands of its young — remain as urgent and unsettling as ever.
Author: Margaret Mead
Format: Paperback
Genre: Anthropology
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Good
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
What does it truly mean to grow up — and is the turbulence of adolescence an inevitable fact of human nature, or merely a product of culture? First published in 1928, Margaret Mead's groundbreaking anthropological study Coming of Age in Samoa sets out to answer this question by immersing the reader in the lives of young Samoan women on the island of Ta'ū, documenting their passage from childhood into adulthood with remarkable intimacy and scholarly rigour. Mead argues, with compelling force, that the stress and conflict so characteristic of adolescence in Western societies is far from universal — and that the relaxed, permissive social structures of Samoan life produce a markedly different, and far smoother, transition into adulthood. A landmark text in the history of cultural anthropology, Coming of Age in Samoa established Mead as one of the most important and controversial social scientists of the twentieth century, igniting a debate about nature versus nurture that continues to reverberate across academic disciplines to this day. Her prose is accessible yet authoritative, blending rich ethnographic observation with bold theoretical argument in a way that speaks equally to the specialist and the curious general reader. Whether one accepts or challenges her conclusions, the questions Mead poses — about freedom, conformity, sexuality, and what society demands of its young — remain as urgent and unsettling as ever.