"A compulsively readable, totally unforgettable memoir that recounts a sensitive college student's experience working on an emergency ambulance in hell, aka New York City." -- James Patterson In 1967, Mike Scardino was an eighteen year-old pre-med student with a problem - his parents couldn't afford to pay his college tuition. Luckily, Mike's dad hooked him up with a lucrative, albeit unusual, summer job, one he's never forgotten. Bad Call is Mike's visceral, fast-moving, and mordantly funny account of the summers he spent working as an "ambulance attendant" on the mean streets of late 1960s New York, at a time when emergency medicine looked nothing like it does today. Fueled by adrenaline and Sabrett's hot dogs, he crossed third rails to pick up injured trainmen, encountered a woman attacked by rats, attended to victims of a plane crash at JFK airport, was nearly murdered, and got an early and indelible education in the impermanence of life. But his work also afforded moments of rare beauty, hope, and everyday heroism, and it changed the course of Mike's life as well as the way he saw the world. Action-packed, poignant, and rich with details that bring Mike's world to life, Bad Call is a gritty portrait of a bygone era as well as a thrilling tale of one man's coming of age.

There are strongly pronounced differentials between survival chances for different social classes in less developed countries. This book gives insight into the variety of factors - biological, social, economic and cultural - associated with these inequalities in mortality rates. Certain of the papers deal with new conceptual approaches and methodological issues, while others address particular countries in Asia and Latin America, providing overall an important and provoking study of inequality in death. This book should interest academics and graduate students in demography (especially those specializing in mortality studies), as well as policy-makers, commentators and professionals in the areas of public health, public administration, social policy and epidemiology.

1933. The object of these notes is to show the origin and development of the practice of the separation of the body at death into two or more parts, and to suggest the circumstances which lead to the special treatment of the heart, for which, hitherto, reasons apparently not quite adequate have been advanced.

Living Through Loss provides a foundational identification of the many ways in which people experience loss over the life course, from childhood to old age. It examines the interventions most effective at each phase of life, combining theory, sound clinical practice, and empirical research with insights emerging from powerful accounts of personal experience. The authors emphasize that loss and grief are universal yet highly individualized. Loss comes in many forms and can include not only a loved one's death but also divorce, adoption, living with chronic illness, caregiving, retirement and relocation, or being abused, assaulted, or otherwise traumatized. They approach the topic from the perspective of the resilience model, which acknowledges people's capacity to find meaning in their losses and integrate grief into their lives. The book explores the varying roles of age, race, culture, sexual orientation, gender, and spirituality in responses to loss. Presenting a variety of models, approaches, and resources, Living Through Loss offers invaluable lessons that can be applied in any practice setting by a wide range of human service and health care professionals. This second edition features new and expanded content on diversity and trauma, including discussions of gun violence, police brutality, suicide, and an added focus on systemic racism.

'Insightful and refreshing.' - Professor Dennis Klass, Webster University Religion Department, St. Louis, USA
'A tour de force.' - Dr Colin Murray Parkes, OBE, MD, FRCPsych, President of CRUSE
Some societies and some individuals find a place for their dead, others leave them behind. In recent years, researchers, professionals and bereaved people themselves have struggled with this. Should the bond with the dead be continued or broken? What is clear is that the grieving individual is not left in a social vacuum but has to struggle with expectations from self, family, friends, professionals and academic theorists.
This ground-breaking book looks at the social position of the bereaved. They find themselves caught between the living and the dead, sometimes searching for guidelines in a de-ritualized society that has few to offer, sometimes finding their grief inappropriately pathologised and policed. At its best, bereavement care offers reassurance, validation, and freedom to talk where the client has previously encountered judgmentalism.
In this unique book, Tony Walter applies sociological insights to one of the most personal of human situations. On Bereavement is aimed at students on medical, nursing, counselling and social work courses that include bereavement as a topic. It will also appeal to sociology students with an interest in death, dying and mortality.

Though death is universal, how we respond to it depends on when and where we live. Dying and grieving continually evolve: new preparations for dying, new kinds of funerals, new ways of handling grief and new ways to memorialise are developing all the time. Bringing 25 years of research and teaching in the sociology of death and dying to this important book, Tony Walter engages critically with key questions such as: should we talk about death more and plan in advance? How effective is this as more people suffer frailty and dementia? How do physical migration and digital connection affect place-bound deathbeds, funerals and graves? Is the traditional funeral still relevant? Can burial and cremation be ecological? And how should we grieve: quietly, openly, or online?

Death studies have, over the last twenty years, witnessed a flourishing of research and scholarship particularly in areas such as dying and bereavement, cultural practices and fear of dying. But, despite its importance, a specific focus on the nature of personal mortality has attracted surprisingly little attention. Reflecting on the Inevitable combines evidence from several disciplinary fields to explore the varying ways each of us engages with the prospect of personal mortality. Chapters are organized around the question of how an ongoing relationship might be possible when the threat of consciousness coming to an end points to an unspeakable nothingness. The book then argues that, despite this threat, an ongoing relationship with one's own death is still possible by means of conceptual devices, or 'enabling frames', that help shape personal mortality into a relatable object. In each chapter the subtleties and applicability of key ideas are enhanced through a series of illustrative narratives built up around the lives of four people at different ages living in two adjacent houses. Reflecting on the Inevitable is relevant not only to academics of death studies, but also those training and practicing in people-helping professions, as well as anyone experiencing or attempting to make sense of major life events.

"Singular Paths, " based extensively on interviews, breaks fresh ground by describing specifically the situations, experiences, and feelings of the often-overlooked single and widowed elderly male. Robert L. Rubinstein suggests that these men must be viewed as individuals and it is this approach which colors the presentation of his research findings. He shows how older men find enjoyment in life using personal and social resources and existing opportunities.

Many modern theories hold that the function of grief and mourning is to cut bonds with the deceased, freeing the survivor to develop new relationships. This work, however, argues that proper resolution of grief should enable one to develop and maintain a continuing healthy bond with the deceased.

Miss Bendann's book is what it purports to be: an analytical study of burial rites. With commendable courage, the author launches into a comparative investigation of a type which for some time has been out of fashion. In a historical introduction, the author deals rather cavalierly with some outstanding representatives, living and dead, of anthropological theory. Then the author plunges into a study based on an intensive investigation of burial rites and associated ideas in Melanesia, Australia, Northeast Siberia and India, where the Vedic conceptions receive particular attention. Here and there, as when commenting upon the universality of the notion that death is unnatural, the author draws her material from a much wider geographical range.

The object of this paper is to give a brief description of the funeral ceremonies of the Parsees, a description that may interest not only the ordinary seekers after Oriental knowledge, but also the students, who strive to find, for most of the present customs, an origin in the commandments of the original Avesta Scriptures.

The meaning of our concern for mortal remains-from antiquity through the twentieth century 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.

This compelling text and dramatic photographic essay convey the emotional power of the death rituals of a small Greek village--the funeral, the singing of laments, the distribution of food, the daily visits to the graves, and especially the rite of exhumation. These rituals help Greek villagers face the universal paradox of mourning: how can the living sustain relationships with the dead and at the same time bring them to an end, in order to continue to live meaningfully as members of a community? That is the villagers' dilemma, and our own. Thirty-one moving photographs (reproduced in duotone to do justice to their great beauty) combine with vivid descriptions of the bereaved women of "Potamia" and with the words of the funeral laments to allow the reader an unusual emotional identification with the people of rural Greece as they struggle to integrate the experience of death into their daily lives.

Loring M. Danforth's sensitive use of symbolic and structural analysis complements his discussion of the social context in which these rituals occur. He explores important themes in rural Greek life, such as the position of women, patterns of reciprocity and obligation, and the nature of social relations within the family.

Social media is full of dead people. Nobody knows precisely how many Facebook profiles belong to dead users but in 2012 the figure was estimated at 30 million. What do we do with all these digital souls? Can we simply delete them, or do they have a right to persist? Philosophers have been almost entirely silent on the topic, despite their perennial focus on death as a unique dimension of human existence. Until now. Drawing on ongoing philosophical debates, Digital Souls claims that the digital dead are objects that should be treated with loving regard and that we have a moral duty towards. Modern technology helps them to persist in various ways, while also making them vulnerable to new forms of exploitation and abuse. This provocative book explores a range of questions about the nature of death, identity, grief, the moral status of digital remains and the threat posed by AI-driven avatars of dead people. In the digital era, it seems we must all re-learn how to live with the dead.

Life, Death, and the Western Way of War traces when and how western soldiers-once regarded as simple fighting tools-became the far less expendable beings that we know today. In Kant's terms, the study traces the process through which soldiers have been turned from mere military means into ends in themselves. The book argues that such a major transformation is largely the result of a shift in the social meaning ascribed to soldiers' death. It suggests that looking at death can somehow provide a privileged angle to understanding the value that societies attach to life. The narrative emerging from the empirical evidence will show that the story of attitudes towards soldiers' death is the story of a gradual, increasing process of individualization in the social meaning attached to human loss in war. Such a development, which took centuries to emerge in full, was neither simple nor linear. It was a process that the state was temporarily able to frame in the collective narrative of the nation, but which ultimately has seen the increasing importance of the life of the individual soldier. In tracing the process through which soldiers have been turned from an amorphous collective into distinct individuals, this book shows how the emphasis on the primacy of the individual has further eroded the effectiveness of western warfare as an instrument of foreign policy. In particular, the modern, liberal conception of the soldier has had the unintended consequence of jeopardizing the Clausewitzian relationship between military means and political ends.

When someone dies violently (through homicide, suicide, or accident) there are unique circumstances surrounding the mourning of that death that do not occur when the death is prolonged or due to illness. Often the violent death is retold through personal narrative. While retelling the events of a death can be therapeutic, without guidance the recounting can entrench the person in his/her grief. Retelling Violent Death provides the guidance necessary for making the retelling of the violent death restorative and therapeutic.
This book provides insight and instruction for bereaved readers and those who work with them. The emphasis of the retelling is placed on helping the person reframe the story they tell, to make them a participant in the story and allow them to reconnect with the living memories of the deceased. In this way, the mourner can remember the way the person lived, and not just the violent way they died.
Edward K. Rynearson writes from his extensive clinical expertise in he area of loss, and from his own personal experience with violent death. Retelling Violent Death is skillfully crafted, and is an excellent resource for bereaved individuals and the people who seek to help them through their grief.

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This intriguing glimpse into the once mysterious aspects of death tells what happens-- step-by-step-- during the embalming and cremation processes.

Here you will find information once known only to funeral directors, including:

What happens to the body when attacked by organisms it once easily fought off

The varied religious beliefs surrounding funerals and wakes

The evolution of embalming: From the ancient Egyptian religious rite to embalming as we know it today, which began during the Civil War, When bodies were shipped home for burial

Alternatives to embalming, including mummification... and much more

"What Happens When You Die" explains simply and in startling detail-- with no touch of the macabre-- what happens when we enter a realm where two divergent forces control our destiny; the undertaker and the soul.

THE NEW YORK TIMES AND SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE ORGANIZED MIND 'Everyone we know needs this remarkable book ... Essential for the rest of your life' Daniel H. Pink, author of When and Drive' 'The secrets of ageing well ... a serious, evidence-based guide to what really works and why' Sunday Times ____________________________________________ We have long been encouraged to think of old age as synonymous with a decline in skills. Yet recent studies show that our decision making improves as we age, and our happiness levels peak in our eighties. What really happens to our brains as we get older? In The Changing Mind (published in America as Successful Aging), neuroscientist and internationally bestselling author Daniel Levitin invites us to dramatically shift our understanding of aging, demonstrating the many benefits of growing older. He draws on cutting-edge research to offer realistic guidelines and practical tips for readers to follow during every decade of life, showing us we all can learn from those who age joyously. Find out: -Why the story that older people don't need as many hours of sleep is a myth -What part environment, behaviour and luck play in how our brains age -How to increase the proportion of your life span spent in good health and decrease the time you spend sick -What you can do to maintain strength of body, mind and spirit whilst coping with the limitations of aging Combining science and storytelling, The Changing Mind is a radically new way to think about aging. 'Read this book. Wise, sensitive, and insightful' David Eagleman, author of The Brain 'A comprehensive and fascinating insight into the evolving human brain. This book could change your life' Professor Stephen Westaby, author of Fragile Lives

Hundreds of thousands of individuals perished in the epic conflict of the U.S. Civil War. As battles raged and the specter of death and dying hung over the divided nation, the living worked not only to bury their dead but also to commemorate them. President Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address perhaps best voiced the public yearning to memorialize the war dead. His address marked the beginning of a new tradition of commemorating American soldiers and also signaled a transformation in the relationship between the government and the citizenry through an embedded promise and obligation for the living to remember the dead. In Death at the Edges of Empire Shannon Bontrager examines the culture of death, burial, and commemoration of American war dead. By focusing on the Civil War, the Spanish-Cuban-American War, the Philippine-American War, and World War I, Bontrager produces a history of collective memories of war expressed through American cultural traditions that emerged within broader transatlantic and transpacific networks. Examining the pragmatic collaborations between middle-class Americans and government officials to negotiate the contradictory terrain of empire and nation, Death at the Edges of Empire shows how Americans imposed modern order on the inevitability of death and used the war dead to reimagine political identities and opportunities into imperial ambitions.

When Evelyn Waugh wrote The Loved One (1948) as a satire of the elaborate preparations and memorialization of the dead taking place in his time, he had no way of knowing how technical and extraordinarily creative human funerary practices would become in the ensuing decades. In Funeral Festivals in America, author Jacqueline S. Thursby explores how modern American funerals and their accompanying rituals have evolved into affairs that help the living with the healing process. Thursby suggests that there is irony in the festivities surrounding death. The typical American response to death often develops into a celebration that reestablishes links or strengthens ties between family members and friends. The increasingly important funerary banquet, for example, honors an often well-lived life in order to help survivors accept the change that death brings and to provide healing fellowship. At such celebrations and other forms of the traditional wake, participants often use humor to add another dimension to expressing both the personality of the deceased and their ties to a particular ethnic heritage. In her research and interviews, Thursby discovered the paramount importance of food as part of the funeral ritual. During times of loss, individuals want to be consoled, and this is often accomplished through the preparation and consumption of nourishing, comforting foods. In the Intermountain West, AFuneral Potatoes, @ a potato-cheese casserole, has become an expectation at funeral meals; Muslim families often bring honey flavored fruits and vegetables to the funeral table for their consoling familiarity; and many Mexican Americans continue the tradition of tamale making as a way to bring people together to talk, to share memories, and to simply enjoy being together. Funeral Festivals in America examines rituals for loved ones separated by death, frivolities surrounding death, funeral foods and feasts, post-funeral rites, and personalized memorials and grave markers. Thursby concludes that though Americans come from many different cultural traditions, they deal with death in a largely similar approach. They emphasize unity and embrace rites that soothe the distress of death as a way to heal and move forward.

When lives are dominated by hunger, what becomes of love? When assaulted by daily acts of violence and untimely death, what happens to trust? Set in the lands of Northeast Brazil, this is an account of the everyday experience of scarcity, sickness and death that centres on the lives of the women and children of a hillside "favela". Bringing her readers to the impoverished slopes above the modern plantation town of Bom Jesus de Mata, where she has worked on and off for 25 years, the author follows three generations of shantytown women as they struggle to survive through hard work, cunning and triage. It is a story of class relations told at the most basic level of bodies, emotions, desires and needs. Most disturbing - and controversial - is her finding that mother love, as conventionally understood, is something of a bourgeois myth, a luxury for those who can reasonably expect, as these women cannot, that their infants will live. The author also wrote "Saints, Scholars and Schizophrenics: Mental Illness in Rural Ireland".

Child mortality has been widely perceived and addressed as a medical issue. Regardless of the fact that there has been a substantial decrease in child mortality world-wide it continues to be a concern in developing countries. Millions of children die each year due to preventable causes. This book argues that there is a clear and consistent pattern of preventable child deaths, which is, at its core, a problem of justice. Modern theories of justice can offer important lessons for the design and assessment of child survival policies from an equity perspective. The book considers Amartya Sen's multifocal metric of justice as more plausible than its Rawlsian or resourcist counterparts. It argues that such an approach to justice is relevant for affirmative action policies, which have long been a source of resentment among historically better-off groups around the world, especially in two of the world's largest and most vibrant democracies-India and the United States.