|
|
Encyclopedia entry: Death and Dying
- Article from:
- The Oxford Companion to United States History
- Author:
Copyright© The Oxford Companion to United States History 2001, originally published by Oxford University Press 2001. (Hide copyright information)
|
Death and Dying.
Starting in the 1980s, social historians began to trace the history of death in America, a subject once considered outside the realm of historical analysis. Their contributions rescued the subject from oversimplification and clichés, including the stereotype—reinforced by such books as Jessica Mitford's
The American Way of Death
(1963)—of Americans as a death‐denying people, too optimistic, energetic, or youth‐obsessed to accept its finality. Instead, this new scholarship established critical phases in the history of death and demonstrated the links between this history and broader themes in the nation's development.
The Colonial and ...