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Title: The Fateful Hoaxing of Margaret Mead: A Historical Analysis of Her Samoan Research by Derek Freeman ISBN: 0-8133-3693-7 Publisher: Westview Press Pub. Date: November, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.08 (12 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: The book rings true because it accords with prior evidence.
Comment: Derek Freeman's book caught my eye because I had been told similar things about Margaret Mead's research by a trusted Samoan friend several years ago. He told me that he once had a radio talk show in American Samoa and he was able to interview several of the women who, as young girls, had served as the source for Mead's information. As I recall it, they told him that they had noticed that Mead seemed to want to hear stories of their loose sexual behavior, and they simply gave her lots of what she wanted. Putting this story over on Mead, he said, seemed to be a great source of merriment to the girls.
I don't think the Samoan friend is putting one over on me. Should any serious researchers want to interview him (He lives in the Washington, DC, area), I would be glad to arrange the contact.
Rating: 1
Summary: Ouch
Comment: Let us see here: Freeman goes on to correct the picture of Samoa, and then uses incomplete and second-hand, and at times downright silly evidence to prove that Mead uses incomplete, second hand, and downright silly evidence.
Now, I am not the biggest fan of Mead, but she is the most misinterpreted anthropologist (probably as she is most popular), and Freeman's sociobiological approach simply goes nowhere.
I also resent the fact that Freeman was an intellectual covard, who chose to wait until Mead's death to publish any critique, in order for her to not be able to respond to it. For shame!
Rating: 5
Summary: Innings in the nature/nurture debate
Comment: Although this book smacks of comeuppance in the nature/nurture wars,with Freeman somewhat preditorily showing an excessive ... factor with his prey, it is interesting reading nonetheless, as it shows indirectly the whole dilemma of fieldwork, with its question mark, how observe another culture at all. The account of the genesis of Coming of Age in Samoa is convincing, although the issue of the hoaxing of Mead as to the actual facts of this coming of age remains slightly ambiguous. But the overall account suggests that the entire project was a bit thin in substance, of excessively short duration, and a prime example of prior assumptions influencing results. It is also a story of how our theories end up influencing our present, which is a challenge to our claims on science. The influence of this book on general culture is therefore a considerable irony. I think Freeman is on guard, hence his account stands up fairly well, but I would also check the challengers here, to this, and to the previous work on this subject by the author. In fact, what is the basis for any claim to observe another culture? Not via tourist photography, in any case.
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Title: Coming of Age in Samoa : A Psychological Study of Primitive Youth for Western Civilisation by Margaret Mead ISBN: 0688050336 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 19 February, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Male and Female by Margaret Mead ISBN: 0060934964 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 01 June, 2001 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Margaret Mead and Samoa: The Making and Unmaking of an Anthropological Myth by Derek Freeman ISBN: 0674548302 Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr Pub. Date: April, 1983 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: Blackberry Winter: My Earlier Years by Margaret Mead, Nancy Lutkehaus ISBN: 156836069X Publisher: Kodansha International Pub. Date: June, 1995 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Margaret Mead : A Life by Jane Howard ISBN: 0449904970 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 16 December, 1989 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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