Congratulations to Peter Hempenstall on the publication of his new book, which explores how New Zealand anthropologist Derek Freeman ignited a ferocious controversy in 1983 when he denounced the research of Margaret Mead, a world-famous public intellectual who had died five years earlier. Freeman’s claims caught the attention of popular media, converging with other vigorous cultural debates of the era. The book engages the intellectual questions at the centre of the Mead–Freeman debate and illuminates the dark spaces of personal, professional and national rivalries.