Western Attitudes toward Death
Book description
Reveals the change in Western man's conception and acceptance of death as evidenced in customs, literature, and art since medieval times.
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…
From Timothy's list on changing your thinking about death and dying.
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