rdf-syntax-grammar
mods:
  schema location: http://www.loc.gov/mods/v3 http://www.loc.gov/standards/mods/v3/mods-3-2.xsd
  title info:
    non sort: The
    title: work of the dead
    sub title: a cultural history of mortal remains
  name:
    name part: Laqueur, Thomas Walter
    role:
      role term: creator
    role:
      role term: author.
  type of resource: text
  genre: bibliography
  genre: Cross-cultural studies.
  origin info:
    place:
      place term: nju
    date issued: 2015
    issuance: monographic
  language:
    language term: eng
  physical description:
    form: print
    extent: xix, 711 pages, 6 unnumbered pages of plates ; 25 cm
  abstract: "The Greek philosopher Diogenes said that when he died his body should be tossed over the city walls for beasts to scavenge. Why should he or anyone else care what became of his corpse? In The Work of the Dead, acclaimed cultural historian Thomas Laqueur examines why humanity has universally rejected Diogenes's argument. No culture has been indifferent to mortal remains. Even in our supposedly disenchanted scientific age, the dead body still matters--for individuals, communities, and nations. A remarkably ambitious history, The Work of the Dead offers a compelling and richly detailed account of how and why the living have cared for the dead, from antiquity to the twentieth century. The book draws on a vast range of sources--from mortuary archaeology, medical tracts, letters, songs, poems, and novels to painting and landscapes in order to recover the work that the dead do for the living: making human communities that connect the past and the future. Laqueur shows how the churchyard became the dominant resting place of the dead during the Middle Ages and why the cemetery largely supplanted it during the modern period. He traces how and why since the nineteenth century we have come to gather the names of the dead on great lists and memorials and why being buried without a name has become so disturbing. And finally, he tells how modern cremation, begun as a fantasy of stripping death of its history, ultimately failed--and how even the ashes of the victims of the Holocaust have been preserved in culture. A fascinating chronicle of how we shape the dead and are in turn shaped by them, this is a landmark work of cultural history. "--
  note: Thomas W. Laqueur.
  note: Includes bibliographical references and index.
  subject:
    topic: Funeral rites and ceremonies
    genre: Cross-cultural studies
  subject:
    topic: Death
    topic: Social aspects
    genre: Cross-cultural studies
  subject:
    topic: SOCIAL SCIENCE / Death & Dying
  subject:
    topic: SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / Cultural
  subject:
    topic: HISTORY / General
  subject:
    topic: Death
    topic: Social aspects
  subject:
    topic: Funeral rites and ceremonies
  classification: GT3150 .L37 2015
  classification: 393
  classification: SOC036000 SOC002010 HIS000000
  identifier: 9780691157788
  identifier: 0691157782
  identifier: 2015003565
  record info:
    record content source: DLC
    record creation date: 150624
    record change date: 20170928104703.0
    record identifier: in00003596534
    language of cataloging:
      language term: eng