1985/03/01 by R. E. Young, E. San Juan · 2 citations
Arts and Humanities · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Philosophy, Science, and History #Academic and Historical Perspectives in Psychology #Data Analysis and Archiving
paper · doi:10.1177/144078338502100104
openalex publication_date 1985/03/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/07
Derek Freeman's new book on Margaret Mead represents the first thorough public airing of anthropological criticism of Margaret Mead's Samoan ethnography. But it is more than that, Freeman turns it into an argument about the nature of anthropology itself and, indeed, about human nature. In doing so, Freeman gets well out of his depth. He depicts anthropologists as foolish virgins uncritically accepting any tale told them and presents his view of the nature/nurture debate as if it were a new direction for anthropology rather than a rehashing of the common orthodoxy of the 1950s. Freeman's Mead story is a Mead myth although it still seems something of a popular hit.