The Hour of Our Death

By Philippe Aries,

Book cover of The Hour of Our Death: The Classic History of Western Attitudes Toward Death Over the Last One Thousand Years

Book description

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…

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Why read it?

1 author picked The Hour of Our Death as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Modern medicine has dramatically extended life expectancies. But as our life spans extend, our fear of death grows. As our hope of living a long life and seeing our children survive grew, we became more rather than less anxious about losing out. We might have expected the opposite. Aries vividly illustrates how people viewed death as a part of life before the nineteenth century and how they reconciled themselves to it. He picks out 1886 as the point where Tolstoy in The Death of Ivan Illych recognized that medical advances were creating anxiety rather than hope. This book may make…

From David's list on how medicine should be.

Want books like The Hour of Our Death?

Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 100 books like The Hour of Our Death.

Browse books like The Hour of Our Death

Book cover of The Logic of Care: Health and the Problem of Patient Choice
Book cover of Fighting for Life
Book cover of A Calculus of Suffering: Pain, Professionalism and Anesthesia in Nineteenth-Century America

Share your top 3 reads of 2024!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,224

readers submitted
so far, will you?

5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in death, medicine, and mourning?

Death 392 books
Medicine 104 books
Mourning 152 books