Read more
Margaret Mead collaborated with her long-time colleague Rhoda Métraux in this unique study of French culture. The Hoover Institute at Stanford University originally published this volume, which grew out of the Columbia University project on Research of Contemporary Cultures in 1954. It is one of the few works by American social scientists dealing with broad themes of French life.
Mead and Métraux present a vivid picture of the French starting with the organization of the house and its architecture, and drawing original conclusions for the structure of French families and overall cultural values. This work, long out of print, is a fascinating and penetrating portrait of a contemporary European society.
List of contents
Introduction
Margaret Mead
PART I: THEMES IN FRENCH CULTURE
Rhoda Métraux
Chapter 1. The Foyer: The World Within
Chapter 2. Education: The Child in the Foyer
Chapter 3. The Foyer: The World Outside
PART II: THREE BACKGROUND PAPERS
Chapter 4. The Family in the French Civil Code: Adoption and the Tutelle Officieuse
Nelly Schargo Hoyt and Rhoda Métraux
Chapter 5. Plot and Character in Selected French Films: An Analysis of Fantasy
Martha Wolfenstein and Nathan Leites
Chapter 6. An Analysis of French Projective Tests
Theodora M. Abel, Jane Belo, and Martha Wolfenstein
About the author
Margaret Mead served as Curator of Ethnology at the American Museum of Natural History from 1925 to 1969. She began her career with a study of youth and adolescence in Samoan society, published as Coming of Age in Samoa (1928). She published prolifically, becoming a seminal figure in anthropology, and was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1979.
Summary
Mead and Metraux present a vivid picture of the French starting with the organization of the house and its architecture, and drawing original conclusions for the structure of French families and overall cultural values. This work, long out of print, is a fascinating and penetrating portrait of a contemporary European society.
