Recently added articles from Macmillan Encyclopedia of Death and Dying:
- Abortion
- Jan 01, 2003; DeFRAIN, JOHN ...A BORTION Abortion is one of the most emotional and divisive moral issues of twenty-first-century American life. Consensus has not been reached on the numerous questions that swirl around the subject, including whether or not a woman ...
- Advance Directives
- Jan 01, 2003; LENS, VICKI ...A DVANCE D IRECTIVES An advance directive is a statement that declares what kind of lifesaving medical treatment a patient wants after he or she has become incompetent or unable to communicate to medical personnel ....
- African Religions
- Jan 01, 2003; ANDERSON, ALLAN ...A FRICAN R ELIGIONS In the religions of Africa, life does not end with death, but continues in another realm. The concepts of "life" and "death" are not mutually exclusive concepts, and there are no clear dividing lines ...
- Afterlife in Cross-Cultural Perspective
- Jan 01, 2003; BERTA, PETER ...A FTERLIFE IN C ROSS -C ULTURAL P ERSPECTIVE The fear of death and the belief in life after death are universal phenomena. Social scientists have long been interested in the questions ...
- Aids
- Jan 01, 2003; DURHAM, JERRY D. ...AIDS In June 1981 scientists published the first report of a mysterious and fatal illness that initially appeared to affect only homosexual men. Subsequent early reports speculated that this illness resulted from homosexual men's sexual activity and, ...
- Animal Companions
- Jan 01, 2003; BEDER, JOAN ...A NIMAL C OMPANIONS There are more than 353 million animal companions in the United States. More than 61 percent of households own a pet; 39 percent have dogs as pets; and 32 percent have cats. In addition to dogs and ...
- Anthropological Perspective
- Jan 01, 2003; BERTA, PETER ...A NTHROPOLOGICAL P ERSPECTIVE It is rather hard, if not impossible, to answer the question of how long anthropology has existed. Should social scientists consider anthropology the detailed descriptions appearing in the ...
- Anxiety and Fear
- Jan 01, 2003; KASTENBAUM, ROBERT ...A NXIETY AND F EAR A generalized expectation of danger occurs during the stressful condition known as anxiety. The anxious person experiences a state of heightened tension that Walter Cannon described in 1927 as ...
- Apocalypse
- Jan 01, 2003; EMMERSON, RICHARD K. ...A POCALYPSE The wordapocalypse has many meanings. In religious usage, it identifies the last book of the Christian Bible, the Revelation of John; a genre of ancient Judeo-Christian visionary literature; or doomsday, the ...
- Ariès, Philippe
- Jan 01, 2003; PAXTON, FREDERICK S. ...A RIÈS , P HILIPPE Philippe Ariès (1914–1984) did not let a career at a French institute for tropical plant research prevent him from almost single-handedly establishing attitudes toward death as a field of ...
- Ars Moriendi
- Jan 01, 2003; DUCLOW, DONALD F. ...A RS M ORIENDI The Ars Moriendi, or "art of dying," is a body of Christian literature that provided practical guidance for the dying and those attending them. These manuals informed the dying about what to expect, ...
- Assassination
- Jan 01, 2003; CRISSMAN, JAMES K.; BEACH, KIMBERLY A. ...A SSASSINATION The term assassin comes from the Arabic word hashashin, the collective word given to the followers of Hasan-e Sabbah, the head of a secret Persian sect of Ismailities in the eleventh century who would intoxicate ...
- Augustine
- Jan 01, 2003; BARNES, MICHEL RENE ...A UGUSTINE For over 1,600 years, the works of Augustine of Hippo (354–430 C.E. ), the great Christian theologian and teacher, have strongly influenced religious, philosophical, and psychological thought. His ideas ...
- Australian Aboriginal Religion
- Jan 01, 2003; MORTON, JOHN ...A USTRALIAN A BORIGINAL R ELIGION Notwithstanding the diversity of Australian Aboriginal beliefs, all such peoples have had similar concerns and questions about death: What should be done with the ...
- Autopsy
- Jan 01, 2003; ISERSON, KENNETH V. ...A UTOPSY Autopsies, also known as necropsies or postmortem examinations, are performed by anatomic pathologists who dissect corpses to determine the cause of death and to add to medical knowledge. "Autopsy," from the Greek autopsia, ...
- Autopsy, Psychological
- Jan 01, 2003; MISHARA, BRIAN L. ...A UTOPSY , P SYCHOLOGICAL The psychological autopsy is a procedure for investigating a person's death by reconstructing what the person thought, felt, and did preceding his or her death. This reconstruction is based upon ...
- Aztec Religion
- Jan 01, 2003; TAUBE, KARL A. ...A ZTEC R ELIGION At the time of Spanish contact in the sixteenth century, the Aztec were the preeminent power in Mexico, and to the east controlled lands bordering the Maya region. Whereas the Maya were neither culturally ...
- Bahá'í Faith
- Jan 01, 2003; SHARON, MOSHE ... BAHÁ'Í F AITH Barely more than a hundred years old, the Bahá'í faith emerged from the region of what is now Iran and Iraq, preaching a vision of the unity of all religions and humankind. The Bahá'í's believe that the ...
- Becker, Ernest
- Jan 01, 2003; TOMER, ADRIAN ...B ECKER , E RNEST The anthropologist Ernest Becker is well-known for his thesis that individuals are terrorized by the knowledge of their own mortality and thus seek to deny it in various ways. Correspondingly, according ...
- Befriending
- Jan 01, 2003; BALE, CHRIS ...B EFRIENDING Befriending is a free, confidential, and nonjudgmental listening service offered by trained volunteers to help people who are lonely, despairing, and suicidal. Unlike some approaches to suicide prevention, befriending does ...
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