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Acknowledgments. <p>Death and Anthropology: An Introduction: Antonius C. G. M. Robben.</p> <p><b>Part I: Conceptualizations of Death.</b></p> <p>1. Magic, Science and Religion: Bronislaw Malinowski.</p> <p>2. The Terror of Death: Ernest Becker.</p> <p>3. Symbolic Immortality: Robert Jay Lifton and Eric Olson.</p> <p>4. The Hour of Our Death: Philippe Ariès.</p> <p>5. How Others Die: Reflections on the Anthropology of Death: Johannes Fabian.</p> <p><b>Part II: Death and Dying.</b></p> <p>6. Death Omens in a Breton Memorate: Ellen Badone.</p> <p>7. The Meaning of Death in Northern Cheyenne Culture: Anne S. Straus.</p> <p>8. Kinds of Death and the House: María Cátedra.</p> <p>9. Displacing Suffering: The Reconstruction of Death in North America and Japan: Margaret Lock.</p> <p><b>Part III: Uncommon Death.</b></p> <p>10. Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande: E. E. Evans-Pritchard.</p> <p>11. Burial Alive: Godfrey Lienhardt.</p> <p>12. State Terror in the Netherworld: Disappearance and Reburial in Argentina: Antonius C. G. M. Robben.</p> <p><b>Part IV: Grief and Mourning.</b></p> <p>13. The Andaman Islanders: A. R. Radcliffe-Brown.</p> <p>14. Metaphors of Mediation in Greek Funeral Laments: Loring M. Danforth.</p> <p>15. Grief and a Headhunter’s Rage: Renato Rosaldo.</p> <p>16. Death Without Weeping: Nancy Scheper-Hughes.</p> <p><b>Part V: Mortuary Rituals.</b></p> <p>17. A Contribution to the Study of the Collective Representation of Death: Robert Hertz.</p> <p>18. The Rites of Passage: Arnold van Gennep.</p> <p>19. The Phase of Negated Death: Hikaru Suzuki.</p> <p>20. ‘Thus are our bodies, thus was our custom’: Mortuary Cannibalism in an Amazonian Society: Beth A. Conklin.</p> <p><b>Part VI: Remembrance and Regeneration.</b></p> <p>21. Sacrificial Death and the Necrophagous Ascetic: Jonathan Parry.</p> <p>22. The 19th-Century Tlingit Potlatch: A New Perspective: Sergei Kan.</p> <p>23. Dead Bodies Animate the Study of Politics: Katherine Verdery.</p> <p>Index.</p>

"I enjoyed this volume immensely; Robben's due care in compiling it is evident throughout, and I have no doubt that it will become an invaluable collection, particularly for those interested in the anthropology of death, but also for others." (<i>Anthropological Forum</i>)

<b>Antonius C. G. M. Robben</b> is Professor of Anthropology at Utrecht University, the Netherlands, and past President of the Netherlands Society of Anthropology. His recent books are <i>Cultures under Siege: Collective Violence and Trauma </i>(edited with Marcelo Suárez-Orozco, 2000) and <i>Political Violence and Trauma in Argentina</i> (2005).

There are few topics that stir the imagination more than the study of how humans across cultures have dealt with the inevitable and universally shared experience of death. In <i>Death, Mourning, and Burial</i>, an indispensable introduction to the anthropology of death, readers will find a rich selection of some of the finest ethnographic work on this fascinating topic. The collectionoffers cross-cultural readings thatspan the period from dying to afterlife, approach this transition as a social process, and demonstrate the great variation of cultural responses to death. <p><i>Death, Mourning, and Burial</i> is divided into six parts that mirror the social trajectory of death: conceptualizations of death; death and dying; uncommon death; grief and mourning; mortuary rituals; and remembrance and regeneration. Each part includes one or two foundational texts on the anthropology of death---on topics such as the disruption of social ties and their restoration through ritual---as well as recent and exciting studies that demonstrate the intellectual breadth of the anthropology of death, such as those on organ donation, “disappearances,” and cannibalism.</p> <p>Not only will <i>Death, Mourning, and Burial</i> serve as a sourcebook and primary text for anthropology classes, it will provide a fine-grained book designed to bring a genuinely cross-cultural perspective to all those studying death and dying.</p>

“An invaluable resource, this enormously welcome volume traces the historical development of the cross-cultural study of death and provides readers the luxury of a single-volume collection of anthropology’s classic contributions to the field.”<br /> –<b>Jenny Hockey</b>, University of Sheffield