Culture and commitment

From the Preface: "This book is based on what I have learned about the way human cultures are transmitted and changed, as I have watched primitive cultures come into the modern world during my last fifty years of field work in the Pacific. Since the first edition of this book, I have made three trips to the Pacific, revisiting the Manus, whom I first studied in 1928, and revisited four other groups in various stages of transition. In between I have attended international conferences and discussed issues like food and population, transition and change-problems of the world-with people from many countries. At Columbia University I have taught a great variety of students, and I have lectured to and held discussions with student audiences all over the country and carefully considered their questions. It is on these experiences that I base my statements. As a cultural anthropologist, I am concerned with the cultural aspects of the generation gap and generational change and their implications for the world community. It was to these concerns that the old pages in the book were addressed, and the new chapters are addressed to them also."--Margaret Mead.