Patterns of Culture

Patterns of Culture is Ruth Benedict's declaration of the role culture plays in shaping human life, and an introduction to the comparative study of cultures written for the general reader. Benedict sets three societies side by side, the Zuni of the south-western United States, the Kwakiutl of western Canada and the Dobuans of Melanesia, and demonstrates how widely the behaviour considered normal, admirable or shameful varies between them. Her argument is that a culture is not a loose collection of customs but a configuration: each society selects, from the vast range of possible human behaviours, a particular set of traits and emphases that cohere into a unique and recognisable whole, much as an individual personality does. That configuration then shapes the individuals born into it, defining which temperaments are rewarded and which are treated as deviant, so that the relationship between culture and the individual becomes the book's central subject. From this Benedict draws the case for cultural relativity, expressing the hope that recognising it will create an appreciation of the coexisting and equally valid patterns of life that humankind has created for itself from the raw materials of existence.

Written from the publisher description, Houghton Mifflin.

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Reliability

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• Ruth Benedict