Western Attitudes toward Death

By Philippe Aries, Patricia Ranum (translator),

Book cover of Western Attitudes toward Death: From the Middle Ages to the Present

Book description

Reveals the change in Western man's conception and acceptance of death as evidenced in customs, literature, and art since medieval times.

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Why read it?

1 author picked Western Attitudes toward Death as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Ariès was a masterful medieval historian, and in this slim volume, based on a series of lectures he gave at Johns Hopkins University, he traced big cultural shifts in the way Western culture has thought about death and dying.

Medieval traditions lauded a so-called “tame death,” in which the dying person calmly accepted their fate, received visitors at home, and directed the rituals and ceremonies that would accompany their impending demise. Death was a normal part of domestic life, witnessed by young and old alike.

This is eventually contrasted with the modern way of dying, in which people die in…

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