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The Fateful Hoaxing of Margaret Mead:

A Historical Analysis of Her Samoan Researches
Front Cover
3 Reviews
Westview Press, 1999 - Social Science - 279 pages
For most of the twentieth century, Margaret Mead’s renowned book Coming of Age in Samoa has validated an antievolutionary anthropological paradigm that assumes that culture is the overwhelming determinant of human behavior. Her account of female adolescent sexuality in Samoa initiated a career that led to Margaret Mead becoming ”indisputably the most publicly celebrated scientist in America.” But what if her study wasn’t all it appeared to be? What if, having neglected the problem she had been sent to investigate, she relied at the last moment on the tales of two traveling companions who jokingly misled her about the sexual behavior of Samoan girls? What if her famous study was based on a hoax?In The Fateful Hoaxing of Margaret Mead, Derek Freeman addresses these issues in a detailed historical analysis of Margaret Mead’s Samoan researches and of her training in New York by Franz Boas and Ruth Benedict. By examining hitherto unpublished correspondence between Mead, her mentor Franz Boas and others—as well as the sworn testimony of Fa’apua’a Fa’am, one of Mead’s traveling companions of 1926—Freeman provides compelling evidence that one of the most influential anthropological studies of the twentieth century was unwittingly based on the mischievous joking of the investigator’s informants.But The Fateful Hoaxing of Margaret Mead goes beyond a historical account of how the hoax took place; it is an examination of how Mead’s Boasian training set her up to be hoaxed—and set others up to accept her conclusions. The book is more than a correction of scientific error: It is a crucial step toward rethinking the foundations of social science and the overly relativistic worldview of much of the modern world.

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Review: The Fateful Hoaxing Of Margaret Mead: A Historical Analysis Of Her Samoan Research

User Review  - Trudy - Goodreads

The story behind the "Coming of Age in Samoa." Details of how Mead set out to do the research with the preconception that it is nurture not nature that dictates our behaviour. She was heavily ... Read full review

Review: The Fateful Hoaxing Of Margaret Mead: A Historical Analysis Of Her Samoan Research

User Review  - Michael Kubat - Goodreads

Margaret Mead's Coming of Age in Samoa is a kind of prequel to the current global warming "science" controversy. The young Mead goes to Samoa to search for anthropological truth as preached by her ... Read full review

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References from web pages

JSTOR: The Fateful Hoaxing of Margaret Mead: A Historical Analysis ...
THE FATEFUL HOAXING OF MARGARET MEAD: A Historical Analysis of Her Samoan Research. By Derek Freeman. Boulder (Colorado): Westview Press. 1999. xi, 279pp. ...
links.jstor.org/ sici?sici=0030-851X(199922)72%3A2%3C308%3ATFHOMM%3E2.0.CO%3B2-9

Cambria Will Not Yield: The Fateful Hoaxing of Margaret Mead
Recent Posts. The Academics' Hymn · The Nativity of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ · The European Rose · Merry Christmas · Galahad · The Last European. ...
cambriawillnotyield.blogspot.com/ 2007/ 12/ fateful-hoaxing-of-margaret-mead.html

The Fateful Hoaxing of Margaret Mead: A Historical Analysis of Her ...
In The Fateful Hoaxing of Margaret Mead, Derek Freeman conducts a detailed historical analysis of Margaret Mead's Samoan researches and of her training in ...
www.questia.com/ library/ book/ the-fateful-hoaxing-of-margaret-mead-a-historical-analysis-of-her-samoan-research-by-de...

Freeman responds about Mead-Freeman controversy: on the ethics of ...
My meticulously researched book The Fateful Hoaxing of Margaret Mead: A Historical Analysis of Her Samoan Research was published by Westview Press in ...
findarticles.com/ p/ articles/ mi_m2843/ is_3_23/ ai_54600102

citeulike: The Fateful Hoaxing of Margaret Mead: A Historical ...
TY - BOOK ID - citeulike:259529 TI - The Fateful Hoaxing of Margaret Mead: A Historical Analysis of Her Samoan Research PB - {Westview Press} SN ...
www.citeulike.org/ user/ kerim/ article/ 259529

Friday Book: Sex and the Samoans The Fateful Hoaxing Of Margaret ...
"THIS MEAT has surely been used for soup," says Miss Bartlett at the b : Encyclopedia.com
www.encyclopedia.com/ doc/ 1P2-4968639.html

The fateful hoaxing of Margaret Mead: A historical analysis of her ...
The Fateful Hoaxing of Margaret Mead: A Historical Analysis of Her. Samoan Research. Boulder CO: Westview Press, 1999. 304 pp. $24.00. ISBN 0-8133-. 3560-4. ...
doi.wiley.com/ 10.1002/ (SICI)1520-6696(199923)35:4%3C412::AID-JHBS7%3E3.3.CO;2-6

Margaret Mead - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Freeman continued to argue his case in the 1999 publication of The Fateful Hoaxing of Margaret Mead: A Historical Analysis of Her Samoan Research, ...
en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Margaret_Mead

Philosophy of the Social Sciences
http://pos.sagepub.com. Philosophy of the Social Sciences. 2001; 31; 557. Philosophy of the Social Sciences. ic Jarvie. Freeman on Mead Again ...
pos.sagepub.com/ cgi/ reprint/ 31/ 4/ 557.pdf

The correspondence between Mead and Boas
More recently, in 1999, Freeman published the book, The fateful hoaxing of Margaret Mead: A historical analysis of her Samoan research, claiming that Mead ...
www.ssc.uwo.ca/ sociology/ mead/

About the author (1999)

Derek Freeman is a fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia. For over forty years he has been either a professoral fellow or a professor in the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies in the Institute of Advanced Studies at the Australian National University. He has made a lifelong study of the people of Samoa and, during recent years, has done major historical research in Samoa, the Library of Congress, and elsewhere on Margaret Mead’s Samoan fieldwork of 1925-1926.

Bibliographic information

QR code for The Fateful Hoaxing of Margaret Mead
TitleThe Fateful Hoaxing of Margaret Mead: A Historical Analysis of Her Samoan Researches
AuthorDerek Freeman
Editionillustrated, reprint
PublisherWestview Press, 1999
ISBN0813336937, 9780813336930
Length279 pages
Subjects ›  › 

Social Science / Anthropology / Cultural
  
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