Margaret Mead served as Curator of Ethnology at the American Museum of Natural History from 1925 to 1969. She began her career with a study of youth and adolescence in Samoan society, published as Coming of Age in Samoa (1928). She published prolifically, becoming a seminal figure in anthropology, and was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1979.

Series Preface
William O. Beeman

Introduction to this edition
William O. Beeman

PART I: ANTHROPOLOGY AS A DISCIPLINE

Chapter 1. Towards a Human Science
Chapter 2. Talks with Social Scientists: Margaret Mead on What is a Culture? What is a Civilization?
Chapter 3. Anthropologist and Historian: Their Common Problems
Chapter 4. Changing Styles of Anthropological Work

PART II: SOCIAL THEORY IN THE STUDY OF CONTEMPORARY CULTURE

Chapter 5. Methodology in Racial Testing: Its Significance for Sociology
Chapter 6. The Study of National Character
Chapter 7. The Swaddling Hypothesis: iIs Reception
Chapter 8. Some Cultural Approaches to Communication Problems
Chapter 9. A Case History in Cross-National Communications
Chapter 10. Adolescence in Primitive and Modern Society: The New Generation
Chapter 11. Our Educational Emphasis in Primitive Perspectives
Chapter 12. Early Childhood Experience and Later Education in Complex Cultures

PART III: PERSPECTIVES ON CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY

Chapter 13. From Plight to Power: Youth as a Political and Economic Force
Chapter 14. Religion in the Melting Pot: Religion and our Racial Tensions
Chapter 15. The Contemporary American Family as an Anthropologist Sees It
Chapter 16. Sex and Censorship in Contemporary Society
Chapter 17. Sexual Behavior: An Anthropologist looks at the [Kinsey] Report
Chapter 18. Jealousy: Primitive and Civilized