A close look at stories of maternal death in Malawi that considers their implications in the broader arena of medical knowledge. By the early twenty-first century, about one woman in twelve could expect to die of a pregnancy or childbirth complication in Malawi. Specific deaths became object lessons. Explanatory stories circulated through hospitals and villages, proliferating among a range of practitioners: nurse-midwives, traditional birth attendants, doctors, epidemiologists, herbalists. Was biology to blame? Economic underdevelopment? Immoral behavior? Tradition? Were the dead themselves at fault? In Partial Stories, Claire L. Wendland considers these explanations for maternal death, showing how they reflect competing visions of the past and shared concerns about social change. Drawing on extended fieldwork, Wendland reveals how efforts to legitimate a single story as the authoritative version can render care more dangerous than it might otherwise be. Historical, biological, technological, ethical, statistical, and political perspectives on death usually circulate in different expert communities and different bodies of literature. Here, Wendland considers them together, illuminating dilemmas of maternity care in contexts of acute change, chronic scarcity, and endemic inequity within Malawi and beyond.

"The milkman cried when I told him you were dead. 'Last night,' I said, 'Mark died.'" This collection brings together 30 short stories and poems about dying and bereavement. Written by mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, wives, husbands and dying people, these moving pieces talk honestly about how it feels to care for someone who is dying, to grieve for a loved one, and to face death oneself. A candid story about a daughter's relationship with her mother's carer; an internal monologue on dementia; a deeply moving poem about losing a son to cot death; and a heartfelt story about a mother's end of life are some of the poignant pieces included. This collection provides an opportunity to think and talk about death and dying, too often a taboo subject, and offers readers the rare comfort and support of shared experience.

This stimulating new book provides a sophisticated introduction to the key issues in the sociology of death and dying.

In recent years, the social sciences have seen an upsurge of interest in death and dying. The fascination with death is reflected in popular media such as newspapers, television documentaries, films and soaps, and, moreover, in the multiplying range of professional roles associated with dying and death. Yet despite its ubiquitous significance, the majority of texts in the field have been written primarily for health professionals. This book breaks with that tradition.

It provides a cutting edge, comprehensive discussion of the key topics in death and dying and in so doing demonstrates that the study of mortality is germane to all areas of sociology. The book is organised thematically, utilising empirical material from cross-national and cross-cultural perspectives. It carefully addresses questions about social attitudes to mortality, the social nature of death and dying, explanations for change and diversity in approaches, and traditional, modern and postmodern experiences of death.

"Death and Dying" will appeal to students across the social sciences, as well as professionals whose work brings them into contact with dying or bereaved people.

"Kein Antlitz in einem Sarg hat mir je gezeigt, daB der Eben-Verstorbene uns vermiBt. Das Gegenteil davon ist Uberdeutlich . . . Der Verstorbene UberlaBt mich der Erinnerung an meine Erlebnisse mit ihm . . . Er hingegen, der Verstorbene, hat inzwischen eine Erfahrung, die mir erst noch bevorsteht, und die sich nicht ver- mitteln laBt - es geschehe denn durch eine Offenbarung im Glauben. " Aus der Totenrede von Max Frisch fUr Peter Noll Die Ergebnisse einer kulturvergleichenden Analyse zu Sterben und Tod, die sich die 7. Internationale Fachkonferenz Ethnomedizin im April 1984 zur Aufgabe gemacht hatte, werden hier einer breiteren Offentlichkeit zuganglich. Die Beitrage konfrontieren uns mit einer tiberwaltigenden Ftille kultureller Zeugnisse tiber den Umgang mit Sterbenden und tiber die Symbolisierung des Todes. Ungeachtet der un- vermeidlichen Beschranktheit und Zufalligkeit der Auswahl, trotz der in der Sache liegenden Verfremdung wissenschaftlich-methodischer Dar- stellung ftihlt sich der Leser unmittelbar angesprochen, ja, gefes- selt durch die Intensitat, mit der zu allen Zeiten und in allen Kulturen Sterben und Tod kulturell gestaltet, symbolisch gedeutet und im mitmenschlichen Umgang erfahren wurde. DaB uns Menschen Ster- ben und Tod gemeinsam sind, daB jede Zeit, jede Kultur, aber auch jeder einzelne sich dieser anthropologisch gemeinsamen Situation stellen muB, sie ftir sich deuten und verarbeiten muB, dtirfte wohl auf keine andere Weise so sinnfallig und tiberzeugend hervortreten wie in dem hier vorgelegten Tagungsbericht.

The Life of the Afterlife in the Big Sky State is a groundbreaking history of death in Montana. It offers a unique, reflective, and sensitive perspective on the evolution of customs and burial grounds. Beginning with Montana's first known burial site, Ellen Baumler considers the archaeological records of early interments in rock ledges, under cairns, in trees, and on open-air scaffolds. Contact with Europeans at trading posts and missions brought new burial practices. Later, crude "boot hills" and pioneer graveyards evolved into orderly cemeteries. Planned cemeteries became the hallmark of civilization and the measure of an educated community. Baumler explores this history, yet untold about Montana. She traces the pathway from primitive beginnings to park-like, architecturally planned burial grounds where people could recreate, educate their children, and honor the dead. The Life of the Afterlife in the Big Sky State is not a comprehensive listing of the many hundreds of cemeteries across Montana. Rather it discusses cultural identity evidenced through burial practices, changing methods of interments and why those came about, and the evolution of cemeteries as the "last great necessity" in organized communities. Through examples and anecdotes, the book examines how we remember those who have passed on.

In the febrile religious and political climate of late sixteenth-century England, when the grip of the Reformation was as yet fragile and insecure, and underground papism still perceived to be rife, Lancashire was felt by the Protestant authorities to be a sinister corner of superstition, lawlessness and popery. And it was around Pendle Hill, a sombre ridge that looms over the intersecting pastures, meadows and moorland of the Ribble Valley, that their suspicions took infamous shape. The arraignment of the Lancashire witches in the assizes of Lancaster during 1612 is England's most notorious witch-trial. The women who lived in the vicinity of Pendle, who were accused alongside the so-called Samlesbury Witches, then convicted and hanged, were more than just wicked sorcerers whose malign incantations caused others harm. They were reputed to be part of a dense network of devilry and mischief that revealed itself as much in hidden celebration of the Mass as in malevolent magic. They had to be eliminated to set an example to others. In this remarkable and authoritative treatment, published to coincide with the 400th anniversary of the case of the Lancashire witches, Philip C Almond evokes all the fear, drama and paranoia of those volatile times: the bleak story of the storm over Pendle