The unexpected death of Diana, Princess of Wales, in Paris on
August 31st 1997 led to a period of mourning over the next week
that took the world by surprise. Major institutions - the media,
the royal family, the church, the police - for once had no
pre-planned script. For the public, this was a story with an ending
they had not anticipated. How did these institutions and the public
create a cultural order in the face of such disorder? Both those
involved in the mourning and those who objected to it struggled to
understand the depth and breadth of emotion shaking Britain and the
world.
Mourning was focused on London, where Diana's body lay, and on
Diana's home, Kensington Palace. Throughout the city and especially
in Kensington Gardens, millions left shrines to the dead princess
made of flowers, messages, teddy bears and other objects. In towns
and villages around the UK, this was repeated. The mourning was
also global, with media dominated by Diana's death in scores of
countries. The funeral itself had a record-breaking world
television audience, and messages of condolence floated around the
globe in cyber-space.
How unique was all this? Does it mark a shift in the culture of
mourning, of the position of the monarchy, of the role of emotion
in British culture? How does it compare with the mourning for other
super-icons - JFK, Evita, Elvis, and Monroe? Was it media-induced
hysteria? Or was it simply a magnification of normal mourning
behaviour? Focusing on the extraordinary actions of millions of
ordinary people, this book documents what happened and shows how a
modern rational society coped with the unexpected in a
proto-revolutionary week that left participants and objectors alike
asking 'why did we behave like this?
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