THE GOLDEN AGE OF ANTHROPOLOGY

This is a wholly American book about the place of the American Indian in the anthropological history of the western hemisphere. "A golden age of American anthropology," says Margaret Mead, "falls naturally into a period where the young science could still draw on the living memories of Indians... Study of the Indians contributed to the moral fervor and hopefulness that went into the delineation of man as a culture- building animal..." This is a big book, packed with details — these two editors are renowned for intricate and specific research, and The Golden Age is no exception. For all of that, it is smooth and interesting reading. American Indians and everything about them are put into perspective from the time of pre-history when they themselves were "immigrants to the great empty continents of the New World" to today's pitiful spectacle of reservation Indians "withdrawing further from- rather than becoming more adjusted to- white civilization." Dr. Mead's name needs no introduction. Ruth Bunzel is Lecturer in Anthropology at Columbia University, and a recognized authority on American Indian culture. They have selected writings and researches by some sixty anthropologists, and set these off into six sections framed by their own notes and introductions. As comprehensive a work as might be imagined, adult but not too stiffly technical.