Download or read book The History of Death written by Michael Kerrigan and published by Amber Books. This book was released on 2017 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The History of Death explores the compelling subject of death, burial, and the afterlife in varied cultures, societies, and ages. Examines the various approaches to funerals, from sky burials in Tibet and mummification in Egypt, to being left to rot in the family home in Indonesia. Balances grim facts with intriguing details, such as remarkable burial requests, extravagant funerals, human sacrifice, and ritual killings. Illustrated throughout with photographs and artworks of representations of death and funerary rituals throughout history up to the present day"--Back cover.
Download or read book The Routledge History of Death Since 1800 written by Peter N. Stearns and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-10-14 with total page 584 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Routledge History of Death Since 1800 looks at how death has been treated and dealt with in modern history - the history of the past 250 years - in a global context, through a mix of definite, often quantifiable changes and a complex, qualitative assessment of the subject. The book is divided into three parts, with the first considering major trends in death history and identifying widespread patterns of change and continuity in the material and cultural features of death since 1800. The second part turns to specifically regional experiences, and the third offers more specialized chapters on key topics in the modern history of death. Historical findings and debates feed directly into a current and prospective assessment of death, as many societies transition into patterns of ageing that will further alter the death experience and challenge modern reactions. Thus, a final chapter probes this topic, by way of introducing the links between historical experience and current trajectories, ensuring that the book gives the reader a framework for assessing the ongoing process, as well as an understanding of the past. Global in focus and linking death to a variety of major developments in modern global history, the volume is ideal for all those interested in the multifaceted history of how death is dealt with in different societies over time and who want access to the rich and growing historiography on the subject. Chapter 1 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license at https: //tandfbis.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/rt-files/docs/Open+Access+Chapters/9780429028274_oachapter1.pdf.
Download or read book Death in New York History and Culture of Burials Undertakers Executions written by K. Krombie and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2021 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Like every aspect of life in the Big Apple, how New Yorkers have interacted with death is as diverse as each of the countless individuals who have called the city home. Waves of immigration brought unique burial customs as archaeological excavations uncovered the graves of indigenous Lenape and enslaved Africans. Events such as the 1788 Doctors' Riot--a response to years of body snatching by medical students and physicians--contributed to new laws protecting the deceased. Overcrowding and epidemics led to the construction of the "Cemetery Belt," a wide stretch of multi-faith burial grounds throughout Brooklyn and Queens. From experiments in embalming to capital punishment and the far-reaching industry of handling the dead, author K. Krombie unveils a tapestry of stories centered on death in New York.
Download or read book A Brief History of Death written by W. M. Spellman and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2014-04-15 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'A brief history of death' offers a topical survey of views concerning death and its aftermath in the Western tradition, from prehistory to the present. It explores how humans understand and come to terms with the fact of mortality and looks at the physical and social aspects of death, how dying people are treated, how the dying conduct themselves in the knowledge of their approaching demise and how survivors choose to remember the dead. W. M. Spellman examines the work of archaeologists and palaeoanthropologists to give insight into prehistoric perspectives on death through the interpretation of physical remains.
Download or read book A Brief History of Death written by Douglas Davies and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2008-04-15 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The act of death itself and the rituals surrounding it vary enormously and shed a fascinating light on the cultures of which they are a part. In this brief and lively history, Douglas Davies – internationally acknowledged as one of the leading experts in this field – tackles some of the most significant aspects of death and weaves them into a compelling story about our changing attitudes to dying. Offers a fascinating examination of this subject which is of enduring interest in every culture in the world Considers the profound influence death has had on subjects ranging from philosophy to anthropology, through to art, literature, and music - inspiring some of our most enduring artistic highpoints Broaches some of the most significant aspects of death, such as the act of dying, grieving, burial, artistic interpretations of death, places of memory, the fear of death, and disasters/tragedies Weaves these numerous approaches to death into a compelling story about our changing attitudes to dying Contains several illustrations, and is written in an accessible and lively style.
Download or read book A History of Death in 17th Century England written by Ben Norman and published by Pen and Sword History. This book was released on 2020-11-13 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A look at the constant confrontation with mortality the English experienced in a time of plague, smallpox, civil war, and other calamities. In the lives of the rich and poor alike in seventeenth-century England, death was a hovering presence, much more visible in everyday existence than it is today. It is a highly important and surprisingly captivating part of the epic story of England during the turbulent years of the 1600s. This book guides readers through the subject using a chronological approach, as would have been experienced by those living in the country at the time, beginning with the myriad causes of death, including rampant disease, war, and capital punishment, and finishing with an exploration of posthumous commemoration, including mass interments in times of disease, the burial of suicides, and the unconventional laying to rest of English Catholics. Although the people of the seventeenth century did not fully realize it, when it came to the confrontation of mortality they were living in wildly changing times.
Download or read book Death written by Casey Jarman and published by Millbrook Press. This book was released on 2019-08-01 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this illuminating collection of oral-history style interviews, Casey Jarman talks to a funeral industry watchdog about the (often shady) history of the death trade; he hears how songwriter David Bazan lost his faith while trying to hold on to his family; he learns about cartoonist Art Spiegelman using his college LSD trips to explain death to his children; and he gets to know his own grandparents, posthumously. These are stories of loss, rebuilding, wonder, and wild speculation featuring everyone from philosophers to former death row wardens and hospice volunteers. In these moving, enlightening, and often funny conversations, the end is only the beginning.
Download or read book Death s Summer Coat written by Brandy Schillace and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-01-15 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Death is something we all confront—it touches our families, our homes, our hearts. And yet we have grown used to denying its existence, treating it as an enemy to be beaten back with medical advances.We are living at a unique point in human history. People are living longer than ever, yet the longer we live, the more taboo and alien our mortality becomes. Yet we, and our loved ones, still remain mortal. People today still struggle with this fact, as we have done throughout our entire history. What led us to this point? What drove us to sanitize death and make it foreign and unfamiliar?Schillace shows how talking about death, and the rituals associated with it, can help provide answers. It also brings us closer together—conversation and community are just as important for living as for dying. Some of the stories are strikingly unfamiliar; others are far more familiar than you might suppose. But all reveal much about the present—and about ourselves.
Download or read book Death and Disorder written by Ken MacMillan and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2020 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This innovative textbook recounts famous and infamous incidents of death and disorder in early modern England, including the executions of St. Thomas More and Mary Queen of Scots and the untimely end of thousands of others.
Download or read book This Mortal Coil written by Andrew Doig and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2022-02-03 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A TIMES AND OBSERVER HIGHLIGHT FOR 2022 'An empowering story of human ingenuity' Economist 'Full of curious facts' The Times 'Gripping and fascinating' Mail on Sunday 'The obvious beauty of This Mortal Coil is that in being a history of death, it is also a history of life, and a brilliant, fascinating one at that' Scotsman ___________ Causes of death have changed irrevocably across time. In the course of a few centuries we have gone from a world where disease or violence were likely to strike anyone at any age, and where famine could be just one bad harvest away, to one where in many countries excess food is more of a problem than a lack of it. Why have the reasons we die changed so much? How is it that a century ago people died mainly from infectious disease, while today the leading causes of death in industrialised nations are heart disease and stroke? And what do changing causes of death reveal about how previous generations have lived? University of Manchester Professor Andrew Doig provides an eye-opening portrait of death throughout history, looking at particular causes – from infectious disease to genetic disease, violence to diet – who they affected, and the people who made it possible to overcome them. Along the way we hear about the long and torturous story of the discovery of vitamin C and its role in preventing scurvy; the Irish immigrant who opened the first washhouse for the poor of Liverpool, and in so doing educated the public on the importance of cleanliness in combating disease; and the Church of England curate who, finding his new church equipped with a telephone, started the Samaritans to assist those in emotional distress. This Mortal Coil is a thrilling story of growing medical knowledge and social organisation, of achievement and, looking to the future, of promise.
Download or read book Lethal State written by Seth Kotch and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2019-01-10 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For years, American states have tinkered with the machinery of death, seeking to align capital punishment with evolving social standards and public will. Against this backdrop, North Carolina had long stood out as a prolific executioner with harsh mandatory sentencing statutes. But as the state sought to remake its image as modern and business-progressive in the early twentieth century, the question of execution preoccupied lawmakers, reformers, and state boosters alike. In this book, Seth Kotch recounts the history of the death penalty in North Carolina from its colonial origins to the present. He tracks the attempts to reform and sanitize the administration of death in a state as dedicated to its image as it was to rigid racial hierarchies. Through this lens, Lethal State helps explain not only Americans' deep and growing uncertainty about the death penalty but also their commitment to it. Kotch argues that Jim Crow justice continued to reign in the guise of a modernizing, orderly state and offers essential insight into the relationship between race, violence, and power in North Carolina. The history of capital punishment in North Carolina, as in other states wrestling with similar issues, emerges as one of state-building through lethal punishment.
Download or read book The Hour of Our Death written by Philippe Aries and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2013-11-06 with total page 697 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An “absolutely magnificent” book (The New Republic)—the fruit of almost two decades of study—that traces the changes in Western attitudes toward death and dying from the earliest Christian times to the present day. A truly landmark study, The Hour of Our Death reveals a pattern of gradually developing evolutionary stages in our perceptions of life in relation to death, each stage representing a virtual redefinition of human nature. Starting at the very foundations of Western culture, the eminent historian Phillipe Ariès shows how, from Graeco-Roman times through the first ten centuries of the Common Era, death was too common to be frightening; each life was quietly subordinated to the community, which paid its respects and then moved on. Ariès identifies the first major shift in attitude with the turn of the eleventh century when a sense of individuality began to rise and with it, profound consequences: death no longer meant merely the weakening of community, but rather the destruction of self. Hence the growing fear of the afterlife, new conceptions of the Last Judgment, and the first attempts (by Masses and other rituals) to guarantee a better life in the next world. In the 1500s attention shifted from the demise of the self to that of the loved one (as family supplants community), and by the nineteenth century death comes to be viewed as simply a staging post toward reunion in the hereafter. Finally, Ariès shows why death has become such an unendurable truth in our own century—how it has been nearly banished from our daily lives—and points out what may be done to “re-tame” this secret terror. The richness of Ariès's source material and investigative work is breathtaking. While exploring everything from churches, religious rituals, and graveyards (with their often macabre headstones and monuments), to wills and testaments, love letters, literature, paintings, diaries, town plans, crime and sanitation reports, and grave robbing complaints, Aries ranges across Europe to Russia on the one hand and to England and America on the other. As he sorts out the tangled mysteries of our accumulated terrors and beliefs, we come to understand the history—indeed the pathology—of our intellectual and psychological tensions in the face of death.
Download or read book Let the Lord Sort Them written by Maurice Chammah and published by Crown. This book was released on 2021-01-26 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE • A deeply reported, searingly honest portrait of the death penalty in Texas—and what it tells us about crime and punishment in America “If you’re one of those people who despair that nothing changes, and dream that something can, this is a story of how it does.”—Anand Giridharadas, The New York Times Book Review WINNER OF THE J. ANTHONY LUKAS AWARD In 1972, the United States Supreme Court made a surprising ruling: the country’s death penalty system violated the Constitution. The backlash was swift, especially in Texas, where executions were considered part of the cultural fabric, and a dark history of lynching was masked by gauzy visions of a tough-on-crime frontier. When executions resumed, Texas quickly became the nationwide leader in carrying out the punishment. Then, amid a larger wave of criminal justice reform, came the death penalty’s decline, a trend so durable that even in Texas the punishment appears again close to extinction. In Let the Lord Sort Them, Maurice Chammah charts the rise and fall of capital punishment through the eyes of those it touched. We meet Elsa Alcala, the orphaned daughter of a Mexican American family who found her calling as a prosecutor in the nation’s death penalty capital, before becoming a judge on the state’s highest court. We meet Danalynn Recer, a lawyer who became obsessively devoted to unearthing the life stories of men who committed terrible crimes, and fought for mercy in courtrooms across the state. We meet death row prisoners—many of them once-famous figures like Henry Lee Lucas, Gary Graham, and Karla Faye Tucker—along with their families and the families of their victims. And we meet the executioners, who struggle openly with what society has asked them to do. In tracing these interconnected lives against the rise of mass incarceration in Texas and the country as a whole, Chammah explores what the persistence of the death penalty tells us about forgiveness and retribution, fairness and justice, history and myth. Written with intimacy and grace, Let the Lord Sort Them is the definitive portrait of a particularly American institution.
Download or read book Death in Early America written by Margaret Coffin and published by Nashville : Nelson. This book was released on 1976 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On title page: The history and folklore of customs and superstitions of early medicine, funerals, burials, and mourning.
Download or read book Death and Dying in the Working Class 1865 1920 written by Michael K. Rosenow and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2015-04-15 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Michael K. Rosenow investigates working people's beliefs, rituals of dying, and the politics of death by honing in on three overarching questions: How did workers, their families, and their communities experience death? Did various identities of class, race, gender, and religion coalesce to form distinct cultures of death for working people? And how did people's attitudes toward death reflect notions of who mattered in U.S. society? Drawing from an eclectic array of sources ranging from Andrew Carnegie to grave markers in Chicago's potter's field, Rosenow portrays the complex political, social, and cultural relationships that fueled the United States' industrial ascent. The result is an undertaking that adds emotional depth to existing history while challenging our understanding of modes of cultural transmission.
Download or read book A View to a Death in the Morning written by Matt Cartmill and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-07-01 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What brought the ape out of the trees, and so the man out of the ape, was a taste for blood. This is how the story went, when a few fossils found in Africa in the 1920s seemed to point to hunting as the first human activity among our simian forebears—the force behind our upright posture, skill with tools, domestic arrangements, and warlike ways. Why, on such slim evidence, did the theory take hold? In this engrossing book Matt Cartmill searches out the origins, and the strange allure, of the myth of Man the Hunter. An exhilarating foray into cultural history, A View to a Death in the Morning shows us how hunting has figured in the western imagination from the myth of Artemis to the tale of Bambi—and how its evolving image has reflected our own view of ourselves. A leading biological anthropologist, Cartmill brings remarkable wit and wisdom to his story. Beginning with the killer-ape theory in its post–World War II version, he takes us back through literature and history to other versions of the hunting hypothesis. Earlier accounts of Man the Hunter, drafted in the Renaissance, reveal a growing uneasiness with humanity’s supposed dominion over nature. By delving further into the history of hunting, from its promotion as a maker of men and builder of character to its image as an aristocratic pastime, charged with ritual and eroticism, Cartmill shows us how the hunter has always stood between the human domain and the wild, his status changing with cultural conceptions of that boundary. Cartmill’s inquiry leads us through classical antiquity and Christian tradition, medieval history, Renaissance thought, and the Romantic movement to the most recent controversies over wilderness management and animal rights. Modern ideas about human dominion find their expression in everything from scientific theories and philosophical assertions to Disney movies and sporting magazines. Cartmill’s survey of these sources offers fascinating insight into the significance of hunting as a mythic metaphor in recent times, particularly after the savagery of the world wars reawakened grievous doubts about man’s place in nature. A masterpiece of humanistic science, A View to a Death in the Morning is also a thoughtful meditation on what it means to be human, to stand uncertainly between the wilderness of beast and prey and the peaceable kingdom. This richly illustrated book will captivate readers on every side of the dilemma, from the most avid hunters to their most vehement opponents to those who simply wonder about the import of hunting in human nature.
