Allan Kellehear is Professor of Sociology at the University of Bath, UK.

Includes index.

Bibliography: p. 257-280.

The stone age -- The dawn of mortal awareness -- Otherworld journeys: death as dying -- The first challenge: anticipating death -- The pastoral age -- The emergence of sedentism -- The birth of the good death -- The second challenge: preparing for death -- The age of the city -- The rise and spread of cities -- The birth of the well-managed death -- The third challenge: taming death -- The cosmopolitan age -- The exponential rise of modernity -- The birth of the shameful death -- The final challenge: timing death.

"Our experiences of dying have been shaped by ancient ideas about death and social responsibility at the end of life. From Stone Age ideas about dying as an otherworld journey to the contemporary Cosmopolitan Age of dying in nursing homes, Allan Kellehear takes the reader on a two million-year journey of discovery that covers the major challenges we will all face: anticipating, preparing for and timing our eventual deaths." "This is a major review of the human and clinical sciences literature about human dying. The historical approach of this book places recent images of cancer dying and medical care in broader historical, medical and global context. Dying is traced from its origins as an otherworld journey to its later development as 'good death' or 'well-managed' dying in settlement societies. Professor Kellehear argues that most dying today is not well managed. Instead, we are witnessing a rise in shameful forms of dying. It is not cancer, heart disease or medical science that present modern dying with its greatest moral tests, but rather poverty, ageing and social exclusion. Book jacket."--BOOK JACKET.