In November 1998, millions of television viewers watched as Thomas
Youk died. Suffering from the late stages of Lou Gehrig's disease,
Youk had called upon infamous Michigan pathologist Dr. Jack
Kevorkian to help end his life on his own terms. After delivering
the videotape to 60 Minutes, Kevorkian was arrested and convicted
of manslaughter, despite the fact that Youk's family firmly
believed that the ending of his life qualified as a good death.
Death is political, as the controversies surrounding Jack Kevorkian
and, more recently, Terri Schiavo have shown. While death is a
natural event, modern end-of-life experiences are shaped by new
medical, demographic, and cultural trends. People who are dying are
kept alive, sometimes against their will or the will of their
family, with powerful medications, machines, and "heroic measures."
Current research on end-of-life issues is substantial, involving
many fields. Beyond the Good Death takes an anthropological
approach, examining the changes in our concept of death over the
last several decades. As author James W. Green determines, the
attitudes of today's baby boomers differ greatly from those of
their parents and grandparents, who spoke politely and in hushed
voices of those who had "passed away." Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross,
in the 1960s, gave the public a new language for speaking openly
about death with her "five steps of dying." If we talked more about
death, she emphasized, it would become less fearful for everyone.
The term "good death" reentered the public consciousness as
narratives of AIDS, cancer, and other chronic diseases were
featured on talk shows and in popular books such as the
best-selling Tuesdays with Morrie. Green looks at a number of
contemporary secular American death practices that are still
informed by an ancient religious ethos. Most important, Beyond the
Good Death provides an interpretation of the ways in which
Americans react when death is at hand for themselves or for those
they care about.
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