SOURCE: "Ruth Benedict," in Totems and Teachers: Perspectives on the History of Anthropology, edited by Sydel Silverman, Columbia University Press, 1981, pp. 141-70.

Mintz is an American anthropologist who has written extensively on the cultures of Caribbean countries. In the following essay, he examines the way in which Benedict's anthropological writings reflected her personal character and concerns.

Ruth Benedict, whom Margaret Mead described as "one of the first women to attain major stature as a social scientist," came to anthropology relatively late in life, in comparison with her contemporaries. She discovered anthropology only after a long search, and after having sought fulfillment in many other pursuits, only one of which—writing poetry—seems to have provided her with deep satisfaction. Having discovered anthropology, she was to become one of its most distinguished and distinctive practitioners. It is because certain of her unusual and highly original contributions now appear to...