Endings: A Sociology of Death and DyingArguing that death is the central force shaping our social life and order, Michael Kearl draws on anthropology, religion, politics, philosophy, the natural sciences, economics, and psychology to provide a broad sociological perspective on the interrelationships of life and death, showing how death contributes to social change and how the meanings of death are generated to serve social functions. Working from a social as well as a psychological perspective, Kearl analyzes traditional topics, including aging, suicide, grief, and medical ethics while also examining current issues such as the impact of the AIDS epidemic on social trust, governments' use of death symbolism, the business of death and dying, the political economy of doomsday weaponry, and death in popular culture. Incisive and original, this book maps the separate contributions of various social institutions to American attitudes toward death, observing the influence of each upon the broader cultural outlook on life. |
Contents
3 | |
Death in CrossCultural and Historical Perspective | 21 |
3 Deaths Impacts on Society | 67 |
The Social Stratification of Death | 120 |
5 Death and Religion | 170 |
6 Secular Perspectives on Death | 204 |
7 Death and Work | 246 |
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abortion AIDS American Ariès become behavior believe bereavement Berger cancer capital punishment cause cemeteries century Chapter contemporary cultural dead death fears death rates deceased developed died disease dollars dying elderly embalming emotions euthanasia example existence experiences funeral directors funerary grief groups Hall of Fame homicide hospital human hundred ical immortality increasing individuals industry institutions involved killed living meaning military million modern mortality murder National natural nuclear obituaries observed occur one's patient percent perhaps person physicians political population premature Press professional psychological religion religious Reprinted by permission ritual Robert role San Antonio Express-News San Antonio Light social society sociological Soviet Soviet Union space shuttle Challenger suicide survivors symbolic television terminally ill thousand tion United University victims Vietnam War Wall Street Journal widow women workers World War II York York Times Company