Research Catalog

Title

History of suicide : voluntary death in Western culture / Georges Minois ; translated by Lydia G. Cochrane.

Author

Minois, Georges, 1946-

Publication

Baltimore, Md. : Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

387 pages; 24 cm

Summary

• Does religion? How does the historical record disclose or obscure suicides? Minois concludes with comments on the most recent turn in this long and complex history - the emotional debate over euthanasia, assisted suicide, and the right to die.
• In his illuminating history, Georges Minois examines how a culture's attitudes about suicide reflect its larger beliefs and values - perspectives on life and death, duty and honor, pain and pleasure. Minois addresses a wide range of questions drawn from theology, law, literature, science, and medicine. Under what circumstances has suicide been honored or condemned? On what grounds, if any, can it be justified? Under what conditions do suicides increase or decrease? Does legislation make any difference?

Uniform Title

Histoire du suicide. English

Alternative Title

Histoire du suicide.

Subjects

• Right to die
• Suicide > History
• Suicide > history
• Right to Die

Note

• Translation of: Histoire du suicide : la société occidentale face à la mort volontaire.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. [369]-372) and index.

Contents

Pt. I. Tradition: A Repressed Question. 1. Suicide in the Middle Ages: Nuances. 2. The Legacy of the Middle Ages: Between Madness and Despair. 3. The Classical Heritage: Perfecting the Timely Exit -- Pt. II. The Renaissance: A Question Raised, Then Stifled. 4. The Early Renaissance: Rediscovery of the Enigma of Suicide. 5. To Be or Not to Be: The First Crisis of Conscience in Europe. 6. The Seventeenth Century: Reaction and Repression. 7. Substitutes for Suicide in the Seventeenth Century -- Pt. III. The Enlightenment: Suicide Updated and Guilt-Free. 8. The Birth of the English Malady, 1680-1720. 9. The Debate on Suicide in the Enlightenment: From Morality to Medicine. 10. The Elite: From Philosophical Suicide to Romantic Suicide. 11. The Common People: The Persistence of Ordinary Suicide. Epilogue: From the French Revolution to the Twentieth Century, or, From Free Debate to Silence.

ISBN

0801859190 (alk. paper)

LCCN

98004069

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries