The most widely read, and best known anthropologist is probably Margaret Mead, an American who went study adolescence in the South Sea-Islands at the age of 23. Although her fieldwork has been criticised, she was nevertheless one of the foremost fieldworkers of her day. In America, Bali and New Guinea she examined child development, sex and temperament to see what role society has in making people what they are. Adolescence was a time of emotional stress and personal conflict in America and Europe. Mead claimed that in Samoa, adolescence was in many ways the most enjoyable and happy time of life