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 at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.
Part 1: General Patterns and Connections
1. Patterns Of Death, 1800-2020: Global Rates And Causes
Romola Davenport
2. Mass Death During Modern Epidemics: Horrors and Their Consequences
Samuel Cohn
3. Violent Death
Philip Dwyer
4. Suicidology on the Cusp of Modernity: Sociology and Psychiatry in the 19th Century
David Lederer
5. Death-Seeking Turns Political: A Historical Template For Terrorism
Anna Geifman
6. Toward a World Without the Death Penalty
Jon Yorke and Alice Storey
7. The Cemetery
Erin-Marie Legacey
8. Death, Commemoration, and the Era Of Total War In Europe
Jesse Kauffman
9. The Transformation of Death Discourse: From ‘Taboo’ to ‘Revival’ at the Threshold of the New Millennium
Michael Hviid Jacobsen
Part 2: Regional Patterns
10. “Why may not man be one day immortal?”: Rethinking Death in the Age of Enlightenment
Joseph Clarke
11. "Now for the Grand Secret:" A History of the Post-Mortem Identity and Heavenly Reunions, 1800-2000
John C. Weaver and Doug Munro
12. Death in Modern North American History
Peter N. Stearns
13. Death In Mexico: Image And Reality
Stanley Brandes
14. Death in Modern Japan (1800—2020)
Timothy Benedict
15. Picturing the Dead in Early Twentieth-Century China: Bodies, Burial, and the Photography of the Chinese Red Cross Burial Corps
Caroline Reeves
16. Remaking the Hindu Pyre: Cremation in India since the 1830s
David Arnold
17. Muslim Beliefs About Death; From Classical Formulations To Modern Applications
Abdulaziz Sachedina
18. Death in Africa: A History c.1800 to Present Day
Rebekah Lee and Megan Vaughan
19. Rituals Of Death In The Caribbean Diaspora, 1970-: The Immigrant Dilemmas
Garrey Michael Dennie
Part 3: Special Topics
20. Premature Burial and the Mysteries of Death
Joanna Bourke
21. Murdering Mothers and Dutiful Daughters: Infanticide in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Mexico
Nora E. Jaffary
22. ‘I wish we could have saved him for you’: Australia’s experience of death and bereavement in war, 1914-1918
Jen Roberts
23. Soviet Cemeteries
Svetlana Malysheva
24. Death in Modern Film
Thomas Britt
25. Of Presidential Mausoleums and Politics in Neo-Liberal Zambia, 2008 to 2018
Walima T. Kalusa and Kelvin Chanda
26. Celebrating Creation and Commemorating Life: Ritualizing Pet Death in the U.S. and Japan
Barbara R. Ambros
27. Hospice: A Way to Die
Lucy Bregman
28. “A Profound Shift In Policy”: The History Of Assisted Suicide
Ian Dowbiggin
29. Conclusion: Future Trajectories of Death: Speculations and Raising Questions
Cortney Hughes Rinker
Biography
Peter N. Stearns is University Professor of History at George Mason University, USA.
