The American anthropologist Margaret Mead (1901-1978) was barely 24 years old when she left New York to study the natives of Samoa, New Guinea, and other remote Pacific islands. Anthropological research to her was not a dull academic discipline but an adventure in which every little detail,
from Balinese ritual dances to Polynesian tattooing, held enormous fascination. Her 1928 book--Coming of Age in Samoa--made her both famous and controversial...