Pre-Owned Coming of Age in Samoa (Paperback) by Professor Margaret Mead, Franz Boas, Sam Sloan

from KamGeb

I felt like I needed to read it because it is a classic. I am sure back in the day it was innovative and shocking. However, reading it today it seemed politically incorrect, naive, and patronizing. The idea of reading it was better than the actual reading it.

from mbmackay

As a resident of Samoa when I re-read this book, it is wonderful to see how traditional lifestyles have changed so little & with so few problems. But Freeman was right - she got the free sex bit wrong - where were all the accidental babies? And what's this about pregnancy only occurring from long...

from

This should have all the things I like in a book, but it had almost none of them. Culture, society human nature etc., and then to realize she is highly criticized for not presenting these truthfully? This left me feeling cheated and wasting my time. I also found it very hard to read and make sens...

from Norinja

I had to read this book for a freshman year anthro class. It seemed really interesting and I was very intrigued, and then at the end of the class the prof told us that they basically have found that everything Margret Mead Found and wrote about was false. So now I don't know what to think.

from CanadaGood

5 stars for being a great well-written story. Took a star off for letting her prejudices get in way of her conclusions. I am afraid that Ms. Mead was a better writer and teller of tales than anthropologist. Some sense of this is seen in just the subtitle for this book. If written as a dispassiona...