Why read To Cherish the Life of the World?

Book cover of To Cherish the Life of the World: The Selected Letters of Margaret Mead

Book description

Often far from home and loved ones, famed anthropologist Margaret Mead was a prolific letterwriter, always honing her writing skills and her ideas. To Cherish the Life of the World presents, for the first time, her personal and professional correspondence, which spanned sixty years. These letters lend insights into Mead's…

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Why read it?

1 author picked To Cherish the Life of the World as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Elesha Coffman

Author

Mead wrote thousands of letters, a reflection of her era, her many travels, and her astonishing ability to make new connections constantly without dropping any of her old friends. She became who she was and processed what she observed of the world through relationships. In these letters, the reader gains a multifaceted sense of her personality and gets a taste of what it is like to delve into her archive—the largest personal collection in the Library of Congress, with more than 530,000 items. The editors’ headings for the sections indicate how well they knew what the various relationships meant to…

From Elesha's list on Margaret Mead and her life.