Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.
|
Loading... Intertwined Lives: Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict, and Their Circle (original 2003; edition 2004)by Lois W. Banner (Author)
Work InformationIntertwined Lives: Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict, and Their Circle by Lois W. Banner (2003)
   None No current Talk conversations about this book.  akaGingerK | Sep 30, 2018 |   The book follows Mead and Benedict from birth, covers their relationship with each other and their relationships with others, lingers on their work, and continues until Benedict’s death. One of the book’s flaws is that it then ends, leaving me to wish for another chapter, a picture of Mead’s remaining years. This book is not gossipy or sensational in the slightest. If anything, it sometimes sinks under the weight of its scholarship. It spends a great deal of time on the intellectual atmosphere around them, and their participation in that. The writer is very painstaking in her analysis of social attitudes towards lesbians. She traces Benedict’s and Mead’s philosophical paths in a variety of areas: sexual freedom, gender roles, progressive political beliefs, race, anthropological approaches. She shows how Mead and Benedict influenced each other and how they differed, as well as how they were influenced by the other people around them. So much theory can sometimes make things a little dry, and these women were anything but dry. However, it’s not just a biography of Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict, but also a description of the times in which they lived - how they were shaped by it, and how they shaped it. It’s definitely worth reading. (  ) astrologerjenny | Apr 25, 2013 | The book follows Mead and Benedict from birth, covers their relationship with each other and their relationships with others, lingers on their work, and continues until Benedict’s death. One of the book’s flaws is that it then ends, leaving me to wish for another chapter, a picture of Mead’s remaining years. This book is not gossipy or sensational in the slightest. If anything, it sometimes sinks under the weight of its scholarship. It spends a great deal of time on the intellectual atmosphere around them, and their participation in that. The writer is very painstaking in her analysis of social attitudes towards lesbians. She traces Benedict’s and Mead’s philosophical paths in a variety of areas: sexual freedom, gender roles, progressive political beliefs, race, anthropological approaches. She shows how Mead and Benedict influenced each other and how they differed, as well as how they were influenced by the other people around them. So much theory can sometimes make things a little dry, and these women were anything but dry. However, it’s not just a biography of Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict, but also a description of the times in which they lived - how they were shaped by it, and how they shaped it. It’s definitely worth reading. ( ) astrologerjenny | Apr 24, 2013 | owlpal | Oct 31, 2009 | no reviews | add a review
Awards
This book is a revealing biography of two eminent twentieth century American women. Close friends for much of their lives, Ruth Benedict and Margaret Mead met at Barnard College in 1922, when Mead was a student, Benedict a teacher. They became sexual partners (though both married), and pioneered in the then male-dominated discipline of anthropology. They championed racial and sexual equality and cultural relativity despite the generally racist, xenophobic, and homophobic tenor of their era. Mead's best-selling Coming of Age in Samoa (1928) and Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies (1935), and Benedict's Patterns of Culture (1934), Race (1940), and The Chrysanthemum and the Sword (1946), were landmark studies that ensured the lasting prominence and influence of their authors in the field of anthropology and beyond. With unprecedented access to the complete archives of the two women--including hundreds of letters opened to scholars in 2001--Lois Banner examines the impact of their difficult childhoods and the relationship between them in the context of their circle of family, friends, husbands, lovers, and colleagues, as well as the calamitous events of their time. She shows how Benedict inadvertently exposed Mead to charges of professional incompetence, discloses the serious errors New Zealand anthropologist Derek Freeman made in his famed attack on Mead's research on Samoa, and reveals what happened in New Guinea when Mead and colleagues engaged in a ritual aimed at overturning all gender and sexual boundaries. No library descriptions found. |
Current DiscussionsNonePopular covers
 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)306.092Social sciences Social Sciences; Sociology and anthropology Culture and Institutions Biography And History BiographyLC ClassificationRatingAverage: (3.71)
Is this you?Become a LibraryThing Author. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Wikipedia in English
1
It is also a slow read, quite dense with detail. During the month I was actively reading it, I sometimes refered to it as The Book That's Trying to Kill Me, because its endurance was clearly greater than my own. Honestly, I probably would have liked it more had I not been woefully misled by cover copy. (