An anthropologist at work; writings of Ruth Benedict / by Margaret Mead; Ruth Benedict.

With hardcover

Notes: pp. 527-562; Index: pp. 565-583

Cont.: pt. 1: Search, 1920-1930 / Margaret Mead ; The vision in Plains culture ; A matter for the field worker in folklore ; Cups of clay ; Counters in the game ; The uses of cannibalism ; Selections from the correspondence of Edward Sapir with Ruth Benedict, 1922-1923 ; Two diaries. Diary, 1923 ; Diary, 1926 -- pt. 2: Anne Singleton: 1889-1934 / Margaret Mead ; The story of my life-- ; The sense of symbolism ; Journals. Journal, 1912-1916 ; Journal fragments, 1915-1934 ; Preface to an anthology ; Selections from the correspondence of Edward Sapir with Ruth Benedict, 1923-1938 -- pt. 3: Patterns of culture, 1922-1934 / Margaret Mead ; A brief sketch of Serrano culture ; They dance for rain in Zuni ; An introduction to Zuni mythology ; Dominant cultural attitudes in Manu'a / Margaret Mead ; Psychological types in the cultures of the Southwest ; Anthropology and the abnormal ; Selections from correspondence to and from the field, 1924-1934 ; The years as Boas' left hand / Margaret Mead ; The bond of fellowship ; Race prejudice in the United States ; Postwar race prejudice ; The natural history of war ; Ideologies in the light of comparative data ; Primitive freedom ; Selections from the correspondence between Ruth Benedict and Franz Boas, 1923-1940 ; Franz Boas, an obituary -- pt. 5: The postwar years: the gathered threads / Margaret Mead ; Recognition of cultural diversities in the postwar world ; Child rearing in certain European countries ; Anthropology and the humanities -- pt. 6: Selected poems, 1941 ; Mary Wollstonecraft -- Chronology.

This book is both the history of a new approach to anthropology and the biography of a brilliant, sensitive, and elusive woman. It is the posthumous product of a long collaboration between two distinguished anthropologists, Ruth Benedict, who died in 1948, and Margaret Mead, who was first her pupil, then her friend and colleague, and now her literary executor and biographer. The approach can best be described in Ruth Benedict's own phrase: that a culture is "a personality writ large." It is a people's culture that binds them together, and culture is inherited not biologically but through customs handed down from one generation to another. As each individual is related to his cultural background, so is each culture related to the general background. This theory is illuminated and its development shown through a careful selection from Benedict's articles, journals, and correspondence, woven into a continuous narrative and amplified by Mead. From this narrative, there emerges the figure of a complex and fascinating woman, at once diffident and determined, gentle and inflexible, affectionate and solitary. The paradox of Benedict's life as daughter, wife, student, teacher, poet, researcher, and writer is interpreted by the lucid and perceptive observations which introduce each section and make this book by two of the foremost anthropologists of our generation unique.--From publisher description