Description
an important, integrated study of the intellectual and material culture of death in the United States. uses an American Studies approach to synthesize existing literature in the field while applying a new interpretive framework to the subject.Beyond its firm grounding in the secondary literature, it uses a large and quite representative body of published literary sources including novels, periodicals, poetry, newspapers, and funeral literature to show that mid-nineteenth Americans imposed the paradigm of democratic equalitarianism upon their experiences with death while at the same time insisting upon the preservation of the deceaseds individual identity.Steiner transcends familiar narratives about the impact of technology and professionalization on the death industry and instead examines the meaning of death and death rituals in a culture that valued both what was common to all and what was distinct about each. The result is a wide-ranging, yet focused cultural study. Paul E. Teed, Chair, Department of History, Saginaw Valley State University
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