SINU Library

Your cart is empty.
Normal view MARC view ISBD view

The fateful hoaxing of Margaret Mead :

by Freeman, Derek.
Additional authors: Brissenden collection. -- ANU.
Published by : Westview Press, (Boulder, Colo. :) Physical details: xi, 279 p. : ill., map ; 23 cm. ISBN:0813335604 (hardcover : alk. paper); 9780813335605 (hardcover : alk. paper); 0813336937 (pbk. : alk. paper); 9780813336930 (pbk. : alk. paper).
Subject(s): Mead, Margaret, -- 1901-1978. | Ethnology -- Samoa. | Adolescence. | Ethnology -- Fieldwork.
Year: 1999 List(s) this item appears in: RC-04/15
Tags from this library: No tags from this library for this title. Log in to add tags.
Item type Current location Call number Copy number Status Date due Barcode
RESEARCH RESEARCH Panatina Library
Research 		RC 305.8 FRE (Browse shelf) 15/66-RC Available 50351

Includes bibliographical references (p. 235-261) and index.

For most of the twentieth century, Margaret Mead's renowned book, Coming of Age in Samoa, has validated an antievolutionary anthropological paradigm that assumes that culture is the overwhelming determinant of human behavior. Her account of female adolescent sexuality in Samoa initiated a career that led to Margaret Mead becoming "indisputably the most publicly celebrated scientist in America." But what if her study wasn't all it appeared to be? What if, having neglected the problem she had been sent to investigate, she relied at the last moment on the tales of two traveling companions who jokingly misled her about the sexual behavior of Samoan girls? What if her famous study was based on a hoax? In The Fateful Hoaxing of Margaret Mead, Derek Freeman addresses these issues in a detailed historical analysis of Margaret Mead's Samoan research and of her training in New York by Franz Boas and Ruth Benedict. By examining hitherto unpublished correspondence between Mead; her mentor, Franz Boas; and others - as well as the sworn testimony of Fa'apua'a Fa'amu, one of Mead's traveling companions of 1926 - Freeman provides compelling evidence that one of the most influential anthropological studies of the twentieth century was unwittingly based on the mischievous joking of the investigator's informants. The book is more than a correction of scientific error: It is a crucial step toward rethinking the foundations of social science and the overly relativistic worldview of much of the modern world.

Signed by author; 1 copy.

There are no comments for this item.

Log in to your account to post a comment.