The Work Of The Dead A Cultural History Of Mortal Remains by Thomas W. Laqueur

A remarkably ambitious history, The Work of the Dead offers a compelling and richly detailed account of how and why the living have cared for the dead, from antiquity to the twentieth century. Laqueur shows how the churchyard became the dominant resting place of the dead during the Middle Ages and why the cemetery largely supplanted it during the modern period. He traces how and why since the nineteenth century we have come to gather the names of the dead on great lists and memorials and why being buried without a name has become so disturbing. And finally, he tells how modern cremation, begun as a fantasy of stripping death of its history, ultimately failed—and how even the ashes of the victims of the Holocaust have been preserved in culture. A fascinating chronicle of how we shape the dead and are in turn shaped by them, this is a landmark work of cultural history.

Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Year:	2018
Binding:	Paperback
ISBN:	9780691180939
Condition:	Very Good
Description:	Heavy.

This image is of the actual book.

SKU: 1592638
Location: History