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The central theme of this book is a stimulating one. Dr. Benedict reminds us that we are so far creatures of our western civilization that we
accept its customs as an absolute standard and are always ready 'to identify our own local ways of behaving with Behaviour and our own socialized habits with Human Nature'. Then she administers a corrective. She describes three civilizations, each of which differs widely from the others and from our own. She contrasts their religious beliefs, their social structures and marriage relations, and gives us some idea of the type of citizen who is most admired in each case; evidently the man who succeeds in one community would be regarded as a failure or an eccentric in another. Implicit in her comparison of cultures is the idea that our own social structure and the institutions which we take for granted are capable of being modified, and this to the advantage of many citizens. But Dr. Benedict is guarded in her pronouncement here, for she suggests that the dominant cultural traits of different races are comparable to the compulsive habits of individuals, and as such they evade scrutiny and modification until they no longer provide for the most suitable discharge of instinctual energy.
Throughout the book stress is laid on the analogy between the psychological reactions of the individual and racial customs, which in turn have a powerful influence on the personality of the individual. The approach is made from the standpoint of Gestalt psychology, so that Dr. Benedict is concerned to appraise the prevailing mood of the peoples she studies, and then to demonstrate its operation in various social relations. There is something intuitive, perhaps even something romantic, in such a method of approach, but it does not detract from the interest of the fascinating psychological material in the book. For instance, the chapter on the Dobu Islanders contains an admirable study of paranoid reactions; an account of the consistent mildne