As one who loves Samoa through his own missionary experiences (1966-68) this book was extremely interesting and captivating. The author demonstrated a very good understanding of the spiritual side of the Samoan people. His experiences of learning the language and customs, adapting to a new culture and coping with illness and injury were inspiring.
The name of Karl Brewer is still known among the families whose lives he touched.

Coy Lindblom

Albert Wendt is the author of novels, short stories and poetry, including, Sons for the Return Home, Flying-Fox in the Freedom Tree, Inside Us Dead, Pouliuli and Leaves of the Banyan Tree. Living in Western Samoa, Wendt recieved a scholarship to continue his studies in New Zealand. Attending Victoria University at Wellington, there he earned his M.A. in history. Wendt's style of written is difficult and a bit foreign if you would, I'm guessing of the different schoolings he had, his style is more aggressive in writing with deep feelings, comedy and tragedy, which makes him a great writer. Flying-fox in the Freedom Tree is a sequel to the Leaves of the Bayan Tree which is focused on a young Samoan boy, Pepe of Sapepe. Throughout the story Pepe is brainwashed by his two mentors, senoir chief, Toasa "Pepe's conscience" and Tagata, a city dwarf condemned of his stature to be an oddity, a flying fox 'with an eagle in the gut'. Torn between these two paradox, Pepe embarks on a life of defiance aganist his father's unholy trinity of God, Money and Success only to find that the precepts and responsiblities Toasa had taught him are impossible to practice.

An amateurish diatribe, poorly written and poorly argued. Highly subjective and controversial. Published by an "on-demand" publisher, akin to self-publishing. The premise is interesting: the "refutation," by a member of the community, of findings in an anthropological study of that community, published more than 50 years ago. I was hoping for something objective and well-reasoned; however, the author simply engages in polemics. The author extends the idea of intellectual property rights to members of a culture, with the culture being the "intellectual property." Surely that is a dubious proposition? Last I heard, a culture cannot be legally copyrighted... When the author rails against anthropologists, he is picking the wrong target. Anthropologists are generally the most sympathetic, the least racist, and the least likely to say bad things about another culture, of all professions in the world. I think the author is also reacting to old attitudes and old habits of speech that were perhaps more common and more accepted in the U.S. 80 years ago, when Mead wrote her paper, but no longer are today. I am going to reread Mead's book this weekend, very carefully; I haven't read it for a long time.

It's all about culture. What she fails to do though is to discuss what creates culture that we are socially constructed therefrom. Her key subject of youthful sexual relations is in great question and one should read Freeman to see a different view of the romantic tribe that Mead tried to capture in words by visiting only 5 months in which her informants lied about sexual relations that she based her ethnology on. Freeman is a more objective view if that is possible. And more importantly listen to the Samoa themselves above all so-called intellectuals. It is their culture and history afterall - not Freeman's or Mead's interpretation of it. With regard to Mead, she has her conclusion set even before she has started her study and this taints her work, but worth reading nevertheless for historical purpose - but not necessarily for facts.

This book sure proves one thing--Margaret didn't have a clue about Samoan dignity! Here we are, 75 years after her field trip, and STILL Samoans are mad as hell about her making them out to be 'animals'. The Chief really sticks to the anthropology professor for letting Mead's trashy story pass unchallenged. When Derek Freeman tried to set the record straight, they got real mad because he was giving the profession a bad name! Anyway, the Chief proves that Margaret got just about everything wrong. It's a nice sidelight that the Chief says that just about all the Samoan words and phrases in her book are the kind that children use. What a fraud that woman was!

Good compilation of information (as you can probably judge from the 5-page bibliography), but not much of a leisurely read. Discusses possible origin of the polynesians, ancient ruins found on the said islands, as well as legends and artifacts passed on through generations. The author manages to touch alot of topics, but as a general interest book, it just doesn't work.

Childress has uncovered a deep Pacific base for ancient navigators,
who were much more likely the ancestors of American megalithic
builders than the posited but unlikely survivors of a Berengia
migration to the New World -- even though academic texts still fondly
describe ice-age hunters following wandering caribou over thousands of
miles of thick icesheets where neither the hunters nor the hunted
would have had anything to eat.

This book takes the reader into the maritime realm of the first seafarers of the Pacific Ocean. Most fascinating of the ancient cith of Mu where the first pan-Pacific maritime university trained sailing fleets to discover and chart this very ancient part of the world. Delves a little bit into possible ties with Lemuria and other lost lands of the Pacific.

Although this book is about a 10 year old Samoan girl the subjects the author explores are adult. The book is dark and deals with sexual issues and family violence. I'm not saying the book is without merit. It would surely have a place when studying modern polynesian cultures as an adult, but I think buyers should know that it is inappropriate for children.

Short writings that tell the experiences of a Samoan girls,that Pacifc life isn't all what it seems. read where we once belonged next.

Coming of Age in Samoa is a pleasantly-written South Sea fantasy, heavy with the author's social agenda upon it. If you buy the agenda, apparently you can hardly help like the book. (See reviews below.) Even if I bought the agenda (and it is hard for me to look at American society and say the sexuality Mead encouraged has made people entirely free of guilt or conflict), I would still choke on her dishonesty. But as they say in the anthro business, different strokes for different folks.

Some of the defenses of this book below are hilarious. "Sure, it's largely untrue. But it reads well!" (And here I thought it was supposed to be science.) "It stimulated my thinking about culture! Mead really did interview thirty live Samoans! (In some language or other.) "Besides, what scholarship from that era would not sound like fiction today?" (Uh, honest scholarship? Do you want a book list?)

The interesting thing about this book, to me, is the way it illustrates human self-deception, in particular the hubris of those who claim to speak for "Science." Being interested in such curiosities, for me personally the book was worth buying. Mead's sexual fantasies are not the only instance in the 20th Century in which anthropologists sought to throw out "religious dogma" in favor of "scientific" new theories of their own cultivation. As pleasant as an idyllic trip to the islands may be, those for whom such theories hold charm should remember that honest scholarship and imagination are two different things, that vacations in Fantasy Island usually cost something, and that the one who takes the vacation is not always the person who pays the bill.

This is a classic example both of an anthropologist attempting to sift through hundreds of cultural indicators, and of her peers becoming incredibly uncomfortable both with her results, her success in the field, and the implications therein.
(Mead had more than thirty interviewees on the subject of sex, and for a more complete understanding of why her detractors say otherwise, see her published series of letters with a respected mentor.)
Was she impeccably unbiased? No. Could she tell a recreational liar from an honest confidante? Yes. In fact, Mead treats all of her research subjects with some skepticism and makes her own attempt to reconcile the extreme traditional prohibitions on extramarital sex, with the fact that it was indeed occurring, and frequently at that.
As was typical of the times, however, she did not appear to see the Samoans in the proper light of a fully developed culture, but rather in the manner of a Tarzan novel.
Is this offensive? Yes. Does it reveal a good deal of insular cultural ignorance? Yes. Does that mean that all parties interested in the history of anthropology, should avoid the book? No.

Margaret "menarche" Mead is hardly the geeky immaculate virgin mother of cultural anthropology that she makes herself out to be. She personally watched me "come of age" in Samoa, and I have to say in retrospect that it was kind of dodgy. At the time, I thought nothing of her seemingly innocent suggestive X-rated conversations, lewd photographs and sensual erotic massages. Only later, when I secretly read her diary, did I realise that all the time she was deliberately betraying and manipulating my most confidential teenage thoughts and emotions, as well as thoroughly documenting the measurements of my physical development. And only much, much later did I further realise that she had also corrupted our culture, introducing us to prostitution, bribery, tequila, chocolate and syphilis. The fact that she did so under the guise of academic research makes me wonder where she got her gynecological training and who was funding this scandalous project. That said, the book stands the test of time as a vivid reminder of the tragic consequences of blind ambition. Bravo, Miss Mead !

As an anthropology grad student, I've been studying the subject long enough to see the currents of opinion regarding Mead oscillate as a power struggle is played out both inside and outside of the discipline. First comes Freeman's first book, attacking Mead for shoddy methodology and a naive and slanted viewpoint. Then come the defendants of Mead and the critics of Freeman, arguing that many of his criticisms of Mead are in fact true of him and his reasearch. This book from Freeman attempts to answer those critics, but to be honest I don't buy it. Read between the lines of scientific rhetoric here: it is already clear that Freeman's misogynistic perspective couldn't be more slanted, but also pay attention to what he reveals about his own methodology and key informants! Are they any more "objective" than Mead's? When you've got two conflicting bodies of field research amounting to two completely different conclusions, examine the intentions. Mead may have suffered from the dreaded curse of "subjectivity" as she attempted to show that americans' ideas of gender do not signify innate differences in men and women (read: that women are not biologically or naturally inferior to men, and that female adolescence does not have to be a painful experience). What can possibly be Freeman's excuse for his subjective maliciousness? Well, perhaps it is to keep Mead with her still threatening ideas in her place.

It has been over seventy-years (74 to be exact) since Mead's first study took place in Samoa (American Samoa specifically). Her study revealed some of the controversial matters pertaining to adolescents in Samoa. By controversial I mean "a superficial interpretation" of the Samoan lifestyle and cultural norms and, at the same jeopardizing its principles. This not only place the reputation of the Samoan adolescents in a rut, but may also do an injustice to them. The 'truth' about the Samoan adolescents is something that has never been revealed to an outsider. I am a Samoan; born and raised in Samoa--Manu'a. I had lived the life of adolescence; dreamt the dream of adolescence; envisioned the vision of adolescence. The bottom line is, the culture of a Samoan adolescent is a culture of "absurdity and gagging." Nothing that comes out of it is absolutely true. An outsider's perpective is merely a twisted interpretation of it. A few months, or even a year (or two)of study will not surface the true reality of the Samoan adolescent world. Mead's field-study in Manu'a, I believe, was based on information from her closest informants of a very short period of time. It is aweful difficult for me as a Samoan with many sisters to accept Mead's findings on the Samoan adolescents. I appreciate Freeman's work in reevaluating Mead's work for a better understanding (about the truth) of the readers. Thank you. Any correspondance, please send to: Moreli J. Niuatoa, 1325 North College Avenue, Claremont, CA 91711. Or email: mjniuatoa@hotmail.com. Thank you and God bless.

Although this book smacks of comeuppance in the nature/nurture wars,with Freeman somewhat preditorily showing an excessive ... factor with his prey, it is interesting reading nonetheless, as it shows indirectly the whole dilemma of fieldwork, with its question mark, how observe another culture at all. The account of the genesis of Coming of Age in Samoa is convincing, although the issue of the hoaxing of Mead as to the actual facts of this coming of age remains slightly ambiguous. But the overall account suggests that the entire project was a bit thin in substance, of excessively short duration, and a prime example of prior assumptions influencing results. It is also a story of how our theories end up influencing our present, which is a challenge to our claims on science. The influence of this book on general culture is therefore a considerable irony. I think Freeman is on guard, hence his account stands up fairly well, but I would also check the challengers here, to this, and to the previous work on this subject by the author. In fact, what is the basis for any claim to observe another culture? Not via tourist photography, in any case.

This is NOT a book. It is a reprint of a scientific catagorization of the fishes of the listed islands. Fish are listed by scientific name only and there are no illustrations or pictures.