About the Author

Ruth Benedict (1887-1948), one of the most eminent American anthropologists of the twentieth century, was born in New York City. In 1923 she received her doctorate from Columbia University, where she remained throughout her academic career. She is widely known for her book Patterns of Culture (1934), which explained the concept of culture to the layperson and became an American classic.

Ezra F. Vogel is the Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Sciences Emeritus at Harvard. He is a past director of Harvard's East Asian Research Center and Chairman of the Council for East Asian Studies. He is the author of many books on Japan, China, Korea and Asia in general.