One World, Many Cultures: Margaret Mead and the Limits to Cold War Anthropology

Abstract

This article explores Margaret Mead’s application of her anthropological notions of cultural relativism to international relations in the Cold War. It offers a critique of an historiographical orthodoxy that suggests Mead and others like her moved easily from service of the Allies in the Second World War to service of United States interests in the Cold War. Mead did attempt to make this move, but not easily. Two episodes in particular – the ‘swaddling controversy’ over Mead’s and Geoffrey Gorer’s arguments about the ‘national character’ of the Russians, and Mead’s involvement with technical assistance programmes in the developing world – are used to illustrate the poor fit between Mead’s cultural relativism and American aspirations in the early years of the Cold War, which ultimately led to a parting of the ways.

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