Publisher's Synopsis
This work provides a social history of death from the earliest times to Diana, Princess of Wales. As we discard the 20th century taboo about death, this book charts the story of the way in which our forebears coped with a fundamental aspects of their daily lives. The book reveals how attitudes, practices and beliefs about death have undergone constant change: how, why and at what ages people died; plagues and violence; wills and deathbeds; funerals and memorials; beliefs and bereavement. This wide-ranging analysis of death in England is illustrated throughout with photographs and images, their diversity reflecting and breadth of issues and periods covered.
