This book is a classic. Margaret Mead (1901-1978) was one of the most influential women of our time. In this book she puts forth the idea that adolescence does not have to be a stormy time of rebellion against authority. She describes how the culture of Samoa at that time (around 1928) allowed the young women to experiment socially, how they therefore took a more casual attitude toward sex, and how they were not neurotic. It sounds like paradise!
Some people in later generations have insisted that Samoans were never that permissive, but this book is probably describing a transitional state of affairs that did not last long in Samoan history. Margaret Mead happened to go there at the right time to make some remarkable discoveries about culture and psychology.
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