Margaret Mead: A Biography

Greenwood Biographies

by Mary Bowman-Kruhm

The anthropologist Margaret Mead garnered fame and generated controversy in a full life that spanned most of the 20th century. She was a maverick with a strong and sometimes difficult personality, and this biography follows her from childhood years in Pennsylvania, to college days with her pals nicknamed the Ash Can Cats, to tutelage under the preeminent anthropologist, Franz Boas, at Columbia, and her fieldwork in the South Pacific, starting in Samoa when she was 22 years of age. Private and public are interwoven, with coverage of her marriages, close friendships, writings, and career progression. Mead has special appeal to teens because of her work with and theories on this age group.

Readers will be inspired by Mead's individualism and career in anthropology in its golden age. They will also appreciate the insights into her writings, including her autobiography. Mead's viewpoints on myriad topics are presented, with a final note on her impact and an imagining of what she would say about the world today. A chronology and glossary supplement the text.

Genres: Biography

184 pages, Hardcover

First published April 30, 2003

Reviews

[Heather]

Great short synopsis of her life. Full overview of her life but only on the surface. I was hoping for a little more depth on her field work and theories.

[Timothy]

Fine biography, updated from Howard's older bio from the 1980s.