For whom and why -- Home and travel -- The original punk -- My father and academia -- On being a granddaughter -- The pattern my family made for me -- In and out of school -- College : DePauw -- College : Barnard -- Student marriage and graduate school -- Samoa : the adolescent girl -- Return from the field -- Manus : the thought of primitive children -- The years between field trips -- Arapesh and Mundugumor : sex roles in culture -- Tchambuli : sex and temperament -- Bali and Iatmul : a quantum leap -- On having a baby -- Catherine, born in wartime -- On being a grandmother -- Gathered threads -- Family tree.

The autobiography of a pioneer, this is Margaret Mead's story of her life as a woman and as an anthropologist. An enduring cultural icon, she came to represent the new woman, successfully combining motherhood with career, and scholarship with concern for its role in the lives of ordinary people.