Research Catalog

The dying game : a curious history of death / Melanie King.

Title
The dying game : a curious history of death / Melanie King.
Author
King, Melanie.
Publication
Oxford : Oneworld, 2008.

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Details

Description
218 p.; 22 cm.
Summary
"Would you like to be buried, burned, sunk, or pickled? Perhaps you'd prefer to be turned into a diamond, embalmed like Lenin, or shot into space like Star Trek's Scotty?" "The Dying Game is a roller-coaster history of everything that has, could, and does befall a corpse - from the bizarre and grisly death rituals of ancient and modern cultures, to the morbidly fascinating biological, ethical, and legal story that begins only when we end." "A book of the dead that's as gruesomely entertaining as it is exhaustively informative, Melanie King's adventure into the world of this uniquely human obsession lifts the lid on everything you never knew (and didn't know you wanted to know) about the last taboo: Death."--BOOK JACKET.
Subject
  • Dead > History
  • Death > History
  • Funeral rites and ceremonies
  • Death
  • Attitude to Death > history
  • Cadaver
  • Grave Robbing > history
  • Embalming > history
  • Homicide > history
Genre/Form
History
Note
  • "A Oneworld paperback original"--T.p. verso.
Bibliography (note)
  • Includes bibliographical references (p. [192]-204) and index.
Processing Action (note)
  • committed to retain
Contents
Introduction: Alternative Endings -- 1. An Early Grave: Premature Burial and Its Prevention -- 2. Dead or Alive?: The Problem of Diagnosing Death -- 3. Waking the Dead: Resurrections and Exhumations -- 4. Rest in Pieces: Body Bits and Their Uses -- 5. Getting Stuffed: Embalmers, Plastinators and Headshrinkers -- 6. The Ultimate Makeover: Incorruptibles and Self-embalmers -- 7. Stone Angels to Space Rockets: Commemorating the Dead -- 8. Ghost Festivals and Purifying Fire: Safeguarding the Soul -- 9. Bodies of Evidence: Murder Most Foul -- 10. Reinventing Death: The New Technology of Dying.
ISBN
  • 9781851685929 (pbk.)
  • 1851685928 (pbk.)
OCLC
  • 190967924
  • SCSB-10581887
Owning Institutions
Harvard Library