Death and the Afterlife - Hardcover

Innes, Brian

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312227051 ISBN 13: 9780312227050

Publisher: St Martins Pr, 2000

Synopsis

A fascinating exploration of the rituals, beliefs, art, and mythology humans have used to understand death and the afterlife plunders a wide range of practices and traditions--Mexico's Day of the Dead, Victorian funeral customs, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, the burial of Pharoahs, cryonics, and the Bible--to show a variety of human responses to death.

About this title

Review:

For those who wish to confront the fear of dying, Death and Afterlife is the scientifically objective place to start. Biochemical researcher Brian Innes has compiled a handsome coffee-table compendium of everything you ever wanted to know about death, and then some. From the philosophical to the religious, the biological to the mythological, the psychological to the legal, Innes covers it all. Topics include euthanasia, suicide, reincarnation, memorials, necromancy, and epitaphs, just to mention a few. Heavy doses of art and literature of man considering the subject throughout the ages engage and sober the reader. Hamlet ponders, "To die, to sleep. To sleep perchance to dream; aye, there's the rub"; Giovanni Boccaccio depicts the grimacing Black Death of the 14th century; and John Donne admonishes, "never send to know for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee." --P. Randall Cohan

About this edition

• Publisher: St Martins Pr
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0312227051
• ISBN 13: 9780312227050
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 176