To Cherish the Life of the World: The Selected Letters of Margaret Mead [Paperback]

Margaret Caffrey (Author), Patricia Francis (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 4, 2006

Often far from home and loved ones, famed anthropologist Margaret Mead was a prolific letterwriter, always honing her writing skills and her ideas. To Cherish the Life of the World presents, for the first time, her personal and professional correspondence, which spanned sixty years. These letters lend insights into Mead's relationships with interconnected circles of family, friends, and colleagues, and reveal her thoughts on the nature of these relationships. In these letters--drawn primarily from her papers at the Library of Congress--Mead ruminates on family, friendships, sexuality, marriage, children, and career. In midlife, at a low point, she wrote to a friend, "What I seem to need most is close, aware human relationships, which somehow reinstate my sense of myself, as no longer living 'in the season of the narrow heart." This collection is structured around these relationships, which were so integral to Mead's perspective on life. With a foreword by her daughter, Mary Catherine Bateson, a renowned author and anthropologist in her own right, this volume of letters from Mead to those who shared her life and work offers new insight into a rich and deeply complex mind.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

I find I can't get up much enthusiasm for rules," cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead wrote in 1933, in a letter addressed to her female lover, Ruth Benedict, about the tension between her then husband, Reo Fortune, and future husband, Gregory Bateson. A free but highly disciplined spirit dedicated to discovering new cultures and practicing the tenets of open love, Mead was also a prolific writer, whose collected letters have been combined into one volume by Caffrey and Francis, respectively an associate professor at the University of Memphis and curator of a Mead exhibit at the Library of Congress. Assembled with the aid of Mary Catherine Bateson, Mead's only daughter, the cultural anthropologist's vivid dispatches have been categorized by recipient. Addressees include her Philadelphia family, all three of her husbands and several lovers, both male and female, on topics ranging from changing colleges to quelling rumors about her numerous affairs. While Mead's personal relationships tend to be the focus, these connections (particularly with her second and third husbands) were closely intertwined with her professional life. But there is little doubt as to Mead's true obsession: as the writer herself noted to Benedict in 1928, "I think the work is so much more important than any personal issue." Photos. (July)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

It's clear in her expressive and thoughtful letters that pioneering anthropologist Margaret Mead (1901-78) made no distinction between professional and personal pursuits, belief and action. The unity and passion of her unusual, paradigm-altering life and work are vividly conveyed in her missives to family, lovers (men and women), friends, and colleagues. This discerning if somewhat confusingly ordered collection begins when Mead goes away to college and continues throughout her sojourns in Samoa, New Guinea, Bali, and the Admiralty Islands; the ups and downs of three marriages and various affairs; and the writing of her momentous books. Mead's forthright correspondence documents the golden years of anthropology and one woman's great courage in defying convention. Manifest at every phase are Mead's independence, curiosity and receptivity; healthy approach to sexuality; and profound fascination with relationships, the foundation for her radical insights into human nature. As Mead's daughter, anthropologist and writer Mary Catherine Bateson, notes in her radiant foreword, her mother "treasured the people in her life." It is also obvious that Mead dearly loved life itself. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 472 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books; 1st ed. 1st ptg edition (July 4, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0465008151
• ISBN-13: 978-0465008155
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,169,085 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.