Death.
It’s coming, and each of us knows it. Yet each generation that has come and gone has viewed death in a different light. And the generation of the early twenty-first century is no different. This book is an analysis of how this generation views death and the remembering of those who have left this earth through death.
The introduction brings up several terms: agency, authority, and memory. The agency is what brings death, authority is who has control over what practices are performed concerning death, and memory is how the dead are remembered after they are gone. Section 1 deals with culture, religion, and tradition in death, looking at Chile, the countries of the old USSR, the United States, China, and Japan. Section 2 talks about the memory of each individual person who dies. From mortuary rights to the technology that we use today, each person is remembered a bit differently. Section 3 deals with the individual choice and the family choice of those who have gone on. This, again, talks about the memory of individuals, but more how the dead will be remembered over time than how they will be remembered in the present.
This was a very interesting book with different perspectives on death. I think that the church should have a bigger part in reaching those who have experienced the death of a loved on than this book puts out. The church has the true hope of life after death, because Christ has given us eternal life, even after death. For this reason, I give this book 3 stars out of 5.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THIS BOOK:
Boret, Sébastien Penmellen, Susan Orpett Long, and Sergei Kan, Eds. Death in the Early Twenty-first Century. Cham, Switzerland: Springer International, 2017.
DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL: I received a complimentary copy of this book through the Springer book review program, which requires an honest, though not necessarily positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.
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