In many respects, this volume is a pioneer effort in anthropological literature. It remains firmly part of the genre of cooperative research, or "interdisciplinary research," though at the time of its original publication that phrase had yet to be coined. Additionally, this work is more theoretical in nature than a faithful anthropological record, as all the essays were written in New York City, on a low budget, and without fieldwork. The significance of these studies lies in the fact that Cooperation and Competition Among Primitive Peoples was the first attempt to think about the very complex problems of cultural character and social structure, coupled with a meticulous execution of comparative study.

Margaret Mead (1901-1978) was associated with the American Museum of Natural History in New York for over fifty years, becoming Curator of Ethnology in 1964. She taught at Columbia University and the New School for Social Research as well as a number of other universities, and served as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Anthropological Association. Among her many books is Continuities in Cultural Evolution, available from Transaction Publishers.