Endings: A Sociology of Death and Dying - Hardcover

Kearl, Michael C.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0195045157 ISBN 13: 9780195045154

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1989

Synopsis

Arguing 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.

About this title

About the Author:

Michael C. Kearl is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas.

Review:

"A comprehensive and fascinating introduction to the sociology of death and dying. It could easily be used for classes ranging from gerontology and the life course to deviance....With the sociology of culture growing, Kearl's discussion of various real and symbolic aspects of death, dying, and endings is a wonderful place to start."--Contemporary Sociology

"A comprehensive treatment of the subject from a sociological perspective."--Rrobin Moremenuili, Northern Illinois University

"Comprehensive and fascinating introduction to the sociology of death and dying. It could easily be used for classes ranging from gerontology and the life course to deviance."--Contemporary Sociology

"A comprehensive and contemplative textbook on death and dying in cross cultural perspective."--Nexus

"The strength of this text is itts thorough socioological delineation of all the institutions and influences that bear upon the experience of death shared by many...Americans."--Teaching Sociology

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 1989
• ISBN 10: 0195045157
• ISBN 13: 9780195045154
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 544