margaret mead — Sex and Temperament

Book Very Good No Jacket Inscribed by Author(s) 1st Edition William Morrow & Co. NY MEAD, MARGARET. SEX AND TEMPERAMENT IN THREE PRIMITIVE SOCIETIES. New York: William Morrow & Company, 1935. Octavo, original cloth. First edition, inscribed by Margaret Mead to Katharine Rothenberger in the year of publication. An exceptional association copy of one of the seminal works of twentieth-century anthropology. Mead's landmark study of the Arapesh, Mundugumor, and Tchambuli peoples of New Guinea, based upon her fieldwork, challenged prevailing assumptions concerning innate differences between men and women and demonstrated the profound influence of culture upon temperament, behavior, and social roles. The present copy bears a particularly distinguished personal association, inscribed by Mead in 1935 on the front endpaper to Katharine Rothenberger, her longtime friend from DePauw University. Rothenberger belonged to Mead's circle of close college friends, and their friendship endured beyond their university years. Mead later recalled Rothenberger in her autobiography, Blackberry Winter, lending the present volume a rare connection between one of her most influential published works and the personal history she subsequently committed to print. Inscribed in the year of publication, the volume provides a remarkable intersection of Mead's intellectual and personal worlds. The association is especially compelling given the book's enduring influence upon anthropology, feminism, and the modern study of gender and cultural identity. A superb association copy of a foundational work in the history of anthropology, with significant provenance linking Mead's landmark text to a formative friendship. Book clean, square, sharp, and tight; overall age-toned, as expected.