A social history of dying / Allan Kellehear.

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2007.

x, 297 pages ; 23 cm

Includes bibliographical references (p. 257-280) and index.

The stone age -- The dawn of mortal awareness -- Otherworld journeys: death as dying -- The first challenge: anticipating death -- The pastoral age -- The emergence of sedentism -- The birth of the good death -- The second challenge: preparing for death -- The age of the city -- The rise and spread of cities -- The birth of the well-managed death -- The third challenge: taming death -- The cosmopolitan age -- The exponential rise of modernity -- The birth of the shameful death -- The final challenge: timing death.