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L'homme devant la mort
The Hour of Our Death
This remarkable book--the fruit of almost two decades of study--traces in compelling fashion the changes in Western attitudes toward death and dying from the earliest Christian times to the present day. A truly landmark study, The Hour of Our Death reveals a pattern of gradually developing evolutionary stages in our perceptions of life in relation to death, each stage representing a virtual redefinition of human nature.
Starting at the very foundations of Western culture, the eminent historian Phillipe Aries shows how, from Graeco-Roman times through the first ten centuries of the Common Era, death was too common to be frightening; each life was quietly subordinated to the community, which paid its respects and then moved on. Aries identifies the first major shift in attitude with the turn of the eleventh century when a sense of individuality began to rise and with it, profound death no longer meant merely the weakening of community, but rather the destruction of self . Hence the growing fear of the afterlife, new conceptions of the Last Judgment, and the first attempts (by Masses and other rituals) to guarantee a better life in the next world.
In the 1500s attention shifted from the demise of the self to that of the loved one (as family supplants community), and by the nineteenth century death comes to be viewed as simply a staging post toward reunion in the hereafter.
Finally, Aries shows why death has become such an unendurable truth in our own century--how it has been nearly banished from our daily lives--and points out what may be done to "re-tame" this secret terror.
The richness of Aries's source material and investigative work is breathtaking. While exploring everything from churches, religious rituals, and graveyards (with their often macabre headstones and monuments), to wills and testaments, love letters, literature, paintings, diaries, town plans, crime and sanitation reports, and grave robbing complaints, Aries ranges across Europe to Russia on the one hand and to England and America on the other. As he sorts out the tangled mysteries of our accumulated terrors and beliefs, we come to understand the history--indeed the pathology--of our intellectual and psychological tensions in the face of death.
Starting at the very foundations of Western culture, the eminent historian Phillipe Aries shows how, from Graeco-Roman times through the first ten centuries of the Common Era, death was too common to be frightening; each life was quietly subordinated to the community, which paid its respects and then moved on. Aries identifies the first major shift in attitude with the turn of the eleventh century when a sense of individuality began to rise and with it, profound death no longer meant merely the weakening of community, but rather the destruction of self . Hence the growing fear of the afterlife, new conceptions of the Last Judgment, and the first attempts (by Masses and other rituals) to guarantee a better life in the next world.
In the 1500s attention shifted from the demise of the self to that of the loved one (as family supplants community), and by the nineteenth century death comes to be viewed as simply a staging post toward reunion in the hereafter.
Finally, Aries shows why death has become such an unendurable truth in our own century--how it has been nearly banished from our daily lives--and points out what may be done to "re-tame" this secret terror.
The richness of Aries's source material and investigative work is breathtaking. While exploring everything from churches, religious rituals, and graveyards (with their often macabre headstones and monuments), to wills and testaments, love letters, literature, paintings, diaries, town plans, crime and sanitation reports, and grave robbing complaints, Aries ranges across Europe to Russia on the one hand and to England and America on the other. As he sorts out the tangled mysteries of our accumulated terrors and beliefs, we come to understand the history--indeed the pathology--of our intellectual and psychological tensions in the face of death.
651 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1977
161 people are currently reading
4837 people want to read
About the author
Philippe Ariès
79 books118 followersPhilippe Ariès (21 July 1914 – 8 February 1984) was a French medievalist and historian of the family and childhood, in the style of Georges Duby. He wrote many books on the common daily life. His most prominent works regarded the change in the western attitudes towards death.
Ariès regarded himself as an "anarchist of the right". He was initially close to the Action française but later distanced himself from it, as he viewed it as too authoritarian, hence his self-description as an "anarchist". Ariès also contributed to La Nation française, a royalist review. However, he also co-operated with many left-wing French historians, especially with Michel Foucault, who wrote his obituary.
During his life, his work was often better known in the English-speaking world than it was in France itself. He is known above all for his book L’Enfant et la Vie Familiale sous l’Ancien Régime (1960), which was translated into English as Centuries of Childhood (1962). This book is pre-eminent in the history of childhood, as it was essentially the first book on the subject (although some antiquarian texts were earlier). Even today, Ariès remains the standard reference to the topic. Ariès is most famous for his statement that "in medieval society, the idea of childhood did not exist". Its central thesis is that attitudes towards children were progressive and evolved over time with economic change and social advancement, until childhood, as a concept and an accepted part of family life, from the 17th century. It was thought that children were too weak to be counted and that they could disappear at any time. However, children were considered as adults as soon as they could live alone.
The book has had mixed fortunes. His contribution was profoundly significant both in that it recognised childhood as a social construction rather than as a biological given and in that it founded the history of childhood as a serious field of study. At the same time, his account of childhood has by now been widely criticised.
Ariès is likewise remembered for his invention of another field of study: the history of attitudes to death and dying. Ariès saw death, like childhood, as a social construction. His seminal work in this ambit is L'Homme devant la mort (1977), his last major book, published in the same year when his status as a historian was finally recognised by his induction into the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS), as a directeur d'études.
Ariès regarded himself as an "anarchist of the right". He was initially close to the Action française but later distanced himself from it, as he viewed it as too authoritarian, hence his self-description as an "anarchist". Ariès also contributed to La Nation française, a royalist review. However, he also co-operated with many left-wing French historians, especially with Michel Foucault, who wrote his obituary.
During his life, his work was often better known in the English-speaking world than it was in France itself. He is known above all for his book L’Enfant et la Vie Familiale sous l’Ancien Régime (1960), which was translated into English as Centuries of Childhood (1962). This book is pre-eminent in the history of childhood, as it was essentially the first book on the subject (although some antiquarian texts were earlier). Even today, Ariès remains the standard reference to the topic. Ariès is most famous for his statement that "in medieval society, the idea of childhood did not exist". Its central thesis is that attitudes towards children were progressive and evolved over time with economic change and social advancement, until childhood, as a concept and an accepted part of family life, from the 17th century. It was thought that children were too weak to be counted and that they could disappear at any time. However, children were considered as adults as soon as they could live alone.
The book has had mixed fortunes. His contribution was profoundly significant both in that it recognised childhood as a social construction rather than as a biological given and in that it founded the history of childhood as a serious field of study. At the same time, his account of childhood has by now been widely criticised.
Ariès is likewise remembered for his invention of another field of study: the history of attitudes to death and dying. Ariès saw death, like childhood, as a social construction. His seminal work in this ambit is L'Homme devant la mort (1977), his last major book, published in the same year when his status as a historian was finally recognised by his induction into the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS), as a directeur d'études.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 62 reviews
March 25, 2013
If there is one thing that I consider as takeaway from this heavy and thick (651 pages) history book, it is this one: dying is a part of a natural process just like being born, growing up, having sex, giving birth, aging, getting sick. We normally dread thinking about death. The book shows that this should not be the case as death is always imminent. We are all born to die. Every minute that passes by means we are getting nearer to our demise.
This book belongs to the history books included in the 501 Must Read Books by Bloomsbury editors. They chose books that will supposedly make the users of their list have a well-rounded knowledge when it comes to history. Having more insights on death and dying, I supposed, made them include this as among their recommended books. Very good choice as this one is really an eye-opener to us living people (hey, how could dead people read?) about the topic that most of us just simply choose not to talk about and that is death.
It took me a long while to finish this book because of its heavy references to Medieval and Renaissance eras particularly about the dying customs and burial practices. My knowledge about those are still very nil at this point of my being a bookworm. However, what made this book extremely interesting are the references to deaths in famous classic works like that of Roland (in the heroic poem, "Song of Roland"), the deaths of King Arthur's knights (in "King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table"), the successive deaths in the Bronte family, the explicit description of Madame Bovary's demise and the death of Ivan Ilyich (in Leo Tolstoy's "The Death of Ivan Ilyich). I have not read all of these but they made me look forward to reading those parts and I found myself slowing down to really savor how Philippe Aries brilliantly incorporated those works in showing how dying customs have change during the authors' time to ours (modern time). Aries seems to have the mastery not only on his topic but also a strong grasp of classic literature. How he dissected the prose and poems of the Bronte sisters resulted to many dogeared pages of the book. I just had so many of those pages that sharing them with you here would be too much. I would rather recommend you to read this book if you don't dread reading non-fiction history books about dying. After all, we will someday all be dead and what better way to prepare but to start having a mindset that there is nothing to fear as dying is what we signed up for when we came here on earth as small babies.
Had this not been a history book, I thought this should have been included in the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die because there are very few in those list that talk about dying and so I guess that list does not prepare readers to their eventual death. This book does at least by giving its readers the right mindset.
This book belongs to the history books included in the 501 Must Read Books by Bloomsbury editors. They chose books that will supposedly make the users of their list have a well-rounded knowledge when it comes to history. Having more insights on death and dying, I supposed, made them include this as among their recommended books. Very good choice as this one is really an eye-opener to us living people (hey, how could dead people read?) about the topic that most of us just simply choose not to talk about and that is death.
It took me a long while to finish this book because of its heavy references to Medieval and Renaissance eras particularly about the dying customs and burial practices. My knowledge about those are still very nil at this point of my being a bookworm. However, what made this book extremely interesting are the references to deaths in famous classic works like that of Roland (in the heroic poem, "Song of Roland"), the deaths of King Arthur's knights (in "King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table"), the successive deaths in the Bronte family, the explicit description of Madame Bovary's demise and the death of Ivan Ilyich (in Leo Tolstoy's "The Death of Ivan Ilyich). I have not read all of these but they made me look forward to reading those parts and I found myself slowing down to really savor how Philippe Aries brilliantly incorporated those works in showing how dying customs have change during the authors' time to ours (modern time). Aries seems to have the mastery not only on his topic but also a strong grasp of classic literature. How he dissected the prose and poems of the Bronte sisters resulted to many dogeared pages of the book. I just had so many of those pages that sharing them with you here would be too much. I would rather recommend you to read this book if you don't dread reading non-fiction history books about dying. After all, we will someday all be dead and what better way to prepare but to start having a mindset that there is nothing to fear as dying is what we signed up for when we came here on earth as small babies.
Had this not been a history book, I thought this should have been included in the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die because there are very few in those list that talk about dying and so I guess that list does not prepare readers to their eventual death. This book does at least by giving its readers the right mindset.
April 5, 2010
This book is enormous - 600 pages -- consisting of masses of detail, anecdote, quotations, iconographical studies of all aspects of death from tombs, epitaphs, cemeteries, the danse macabre, Sade, the vanitas mundi, mirrors, medicalization, procession.... on and on -- including much about early Christian/medieval eschatology, friars, early modern prelates, humanists... and so forth. I was only able to read it by mustering all my forces of speed, skim, leap..., and latch... and a sudden leap to the end... The argument is summarized on pp. 602-614. Probably 60% of each paragraph could have been omitted, including all the rhetorical questions, apostrophes, insinuations, intonations, redundancies... and the book would have been much improved. For those interested in medieval or early modern art, however, there is much of value here -- if you can find it.
The book actually did skim very well.
The book actually did skim very well.
April 23, 2009
The last chapter of this book is the only reading I ever had in my academic career that I was so amazed by that I went and bought the book so I could read the whole thing (granted, it took me 4 years to actually read it).
A fascinating look at how the French view death--from burying the dead (and the rituals that surround it) to grieving. Although this book was written with a French audience in mind, I found that its ideas are easily transferrable to all Westerners and enjoyed this cultural exploration of death.
A fascinating look at how the French view death--from burying the dead (and the rituals that surround it) to grieving. Although this book was written with a French audience in mind, I found that its ideas are easily transferrable to all Westerners and enjoyed this cultural exploration of death.
July 10, 2021
I do sometimes feel a little guilt reading a 600 + page hardbound book like this for only a few days when I knew, for example as early as this book’s preface, it took the author years to finish writing it, in this case FIFTEEN YEARS.
It is understandable that this book consumed such a long period of time to write: for it deals with the Western world’s changing attitudes toward death over the last one thousand years. The author visited a lot of graves, cemeteries and churches; examined all sorts of literature about death within this time-frame; raided archives to check on wills of thousands of testators long gone and forgotten; studied tomes of other documentations on the topic: liturgical, epigraphic and iconographic. The research done was stupendous.
That attitudes towards death changes was not unknown to me before I read this book, however. When my paternal grandmother passed away in the early 80’s she left a boastful of black-and-white photos of the recently dead, inside their coffins, surrounded by loved ones posing for one last photo before the internment. In some of these photos the dead inside the coffin was even tilted upright, like it was still alive and could still stand. I also read somewhere that during Victorian England, it was a fad to make the dead pose for a photo with family members with their glassy eyes open, perceptively lifeless, pretending that they’re still alive. However, when I and some friends attended a wake of a dearly departed friend some years back, and had asked permission to take a photo of the latter while lying in his coffin, we were forbidden to do so by his widow and children. The book unfortunately did not explain this present aversion to having final photos of the dead.
In some churches here in the Philippines I’ve seen graves inside them. I learned from this book that this was an ancient practice in the Western world, with the dead having their graves under the floor and on the walls of churches. Another old practice, of course, was burying the dead inside one’s backyard or estate, like what many of us do now to our deceased pets. Quite interesting to know also is that before one’s last will was more of a religious necessity (what to do with one’s body, where to bury it, how many masses must be held and how frequent, which churches will receive donations, etc.). Nowadays, last wills are done mainly to settle property and inheritance concerns, or sometimes as a form of a final reward/vengeance towards friends or relatives the testators anticipate would outlive them.
Cadavers also used to have medicinal uses. It is said that these (cadavers):
“provide raw materials for some very effective remedies of a nonmagical character. For example, the perspiration of corpses is good for haemorrhoids and tumors, and the hand of a cadaver applied to a diseased area can heal, as in the case of a woman suffering from dropsy who rubbed her abdomen with the still-warm hand of a corpse. Indeed, this explains why anatomists always have healthy hands. There was a whole series of remedies designed to heal the living member by the same part of a dead body: the arm by the arm, the leg by the leg, and so on. The desiccated skull relieves the epileptic, the bones are ingested in the form of decoctions made from their powder. The priapus of the stag is useful in treating hysterics and is also effective in cases of impotence, an indication of a relationship between hysteria and love.”
There were also cadavers that:
“emit sounds like the squealing of pigs from the depths of their graves. When one opens the graves, one finds that the dead have devoured their shrouds or their clothing. This is a terrible omen of plague. Garmann devotes a long chapter of his book to these noisy and hungry corpses. These phenomena were regarded as half natural, half diabolical.”
Man’s often strange responses to death mirrors the endless variety of religions they invent. Indeed, it is precisely death which may have necessitated the creation of gods, as it is tied up to the wonder of life’s origins, its purpose and its end. Man’s limitless imagination had spawned different belief systems, rituals and practices competing with each other and many time leading to murder and mayhem.
Recently, a C-130 plane crashed killing several dozens of promising young men and women, mostly soldiers. A father of one of them wondered aloud why’s young daughter was “taken by God” that way (a senseless, horrific death). The parents of a young man, who was about to graduate from college despite their poverty but died in his sleep, asked the same question. And there will be no answer except the imagined ones: God wanted them already in heaven, or God has a better plan, or God wants more angels in his His realm, or he/she is now in a “better place”, or if everything sounds hollow: God works in mysterious ways.
It is understandable that this book consumed such a long period of time to write: for it deals with the Western world’s changing attitudes toward death over the last one thousand years. The author visited a lot of graves, cemeteries and churches; examined all sorts of literature about death within this time-frame; raided archives to check on wills of thousands of testators long gone and forgotten; studied tomes of other documentations on the topic: liturgical, epigraphic and iconographic. The research done was stupendous.
That attitudes towards death changes was not unknown to me before I read this book, however. When my paternal grandmother passed away in the early 80’s she left a boastful of black-and-white photos of the recently dead, inside their coffins, surrounded by loved ones posing for one last photo before the internment. In some of these photos the dead inside the coffin was even tilted upright, like it was still alive and could still stand. I also read somewhere that during Victorian England, it was a fad to make the dead pose for a photo with family members with their glassy eyes open, perceptively lifeless, pretending that they’re still alive. However, when I and some friends attended a wake of a dearly departed friend some years back, and had asked permission to take a photo of the latter while lying in his coffin, we were forbidden to do so by his widow and children. The book unfortunately did not explain this present aversion to having final photos of the dead.
In some churches here in the Philippines I’ve seen graves inside them. I learned from this book that this was an ancient practice in the Western world, with the dead having their graves under the floor and on the walls of churches. Another old practice, of course, was burying the dead inside one’s backyard or estate, like what many of us do now to our deceased pets. Quite interesting to know also is that before one’s last will was more of a religious necessity (what to do with one’s body, where to bury it, how many masses must be held and how frequent, which churches will receive donations, etc.). Nowadays, last wills are done mainly to settle property and inheritance concerns, or sometimes as a form of a final reward/vengeance towards friends or relatives the testators anticipate would outlive them.
Cadavers also used to have medicinal uses. It is said that these (cadavers):
“provide raw materials for some very effective remedies of a nonmagical character. For example, the perspiration of corpses is good for haemorrhoids and tumors, and the hand of a cadaver applied to a diseased area can heal, as in the case of a woman suffering from dropsy who rubbed her abdomen with the still-warm hand of a corpse. Indeed, this explains why anatomists always have healthy hands. There was a whole series of remedies designed to heal the living member by the same part of a dead body: the arm by the arm, the leg by the leg, and so on. The desiccated skull relieves the epileptic, the bones are ingested in the form of decoctions made from their powder. The priapus of the stag is useful in treating hysterics and is also effective in cases of impotence, an indication of a relationship between hysteria and love.”
There were also cadavers that:
“emit sounds like the squealing of pigs from the depths of their graves. When one opens the graves, one finds that the dead have devoured their shrouds or their clothing. This is a terrible omen of plague. Garmann devotes a long chapter of his book to these noisy and hungry corpses. These phenomena were regarded as half natural, half diabolical.”
Man’s often strange responses to death mirrors the endless variety of religions they invent. Indeed, it is precisely death which may have necessitated the creation of gods, as it is tied up to the wonder of life’s origins, its purpose and its end. Man’s limitless imagination had spawned different belief systems, rituals and practices competing with each other and many time leading to murder and mayhem.
Recently, a C-130 plane crashed killing several dozens of promising young men and women, mostly soldiers. A father of one of them wondered aloud why’s young daughter was “taken by God” that way (a senseless, horrific death). The parents of a young man, who was about to graduate from college despite their poverty but died in his sleep, asked the same question. And there will be no answer except the imagined ones: God wanted them already in heaven, or God has a better plan, or God wants more angels in his His realm, or he/she is now in a “better place”, or if everything sounds hollow: God works in mysterious ways.
January 19, 2023
"Don't be afraid of death. It's just nature's way of saying 'hey, you're not alive anymore!".---Bull, on NIGHT COURT
When I was born they had to put me in an oxygen tank, and I did not die. A few years late I shook a Coca-Cola bottle so hard it exploded in my face, scarring me for life, and I did not die. Years after that I fell into a well but did not drown, and I did not die. I was once on board a small plane that caught fire, and I did not die. Another time I fell to the bottom of an icy pool and nearly drowned, but I did not die. Later, I was struck by a car in a hit-and-run accident and left by the roadside but did not die. Now, I realize, death does not want me; he may even hate me. Phillipe Aries, the author of the classic CENTURIES OF CHILDHOOD, turns his attention in the other direction in this always timely tome, analyzing Western conceptions of death from pre-Christian to twentieth-century. No one feared death before the Christians showed up in Rome. Some pre-Christian cultures celebrated the event (you can still find this custom in Creole cultures from Haiti to New Orleans, and in Wallace Stevens's poem "The Emperor of Ice-Cream".) The Christian belief in a self, a soul apart from both the community and the body, is what led to tying death to grief. In the first few Christan centuries this meant, at least for the rich and powerful, elaborate funerals and burials. As death became democratized, i.e. burials were available to more people, the ceremonies became drier and more private. By the second half of the twentieth-century death was the ultimate taboo; like pornography, it had to be segregated and hidden from the public. Aries is not light reading but he is worth pondering before the hour of your own death.
When I was born they had to put me in an oxygen tank, and I did not die. A few years late I shook a Coca-Cola bottle so hard it exploded in my face, scarring me for life, and I did not die. Years after that I fell into a well but did not drown, and I did not die. I was once on board a small plane that caught fire, and I did not die. Another time I fell to the bottom of an icy pool and nearly drowned, but I did not die. Later, I was struck by a car in a hit-and-run accident and left by the roadside but did not die. Now, I realize, death does not want me; he may even hate me. Phillipe Aries, the author of the classic CENTURIES OF CHILDHOOD, turns his attention in the other direction in this always timely tome, analyzing Western conceptions of death from pre-Christian to twentieth-century. No one feared death before the Christians showed up in Rome. Some pre-Christian cultures celebrated the event (you can still find this custom in Creole cultures from Haiti to New Orleans, and in Wallace Stevens's poem "The Emperor of Ice-Cream".) The Christian belief in a self, a soul apart from both the community and the body, is what led to tying death to grief. In the first few Christan centuries this meant, at least for the rich and powerful, elaborate funerals and burials. As death became democratized, i.e. burials were available to more people, the ceremonies became drier and more private. By the second half of the twentieth-century death was the ultimate taboo; like pornography, it had to be segregated and hidden from the public. Aries is not light reading but he is worth pondering before the hour of your own death.
September 25, 2011
To borrow L. P. Hartley's familiar line, "The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there." Though this book doesn't set out explicitly to make you aware that our social life and even our sense of self is a construct that alters over time, it leaves one with just that feeling. Focusing mainly on continental Europe, with forays into Britain and America, Philippe Ariès surveys a thousand years of Western practices and attitudes toward death and finds, to put it simply, that almost everything has changed, not once but repeatedly.
Have cemeteries always been solemn, quiet, isolated places? No. As Ariès remarks, "The church was the town hall, and the cemetery was the public square," where markets were established and gatherings took place; indigents and outcasts even lived there. Has the grave always been, as Andrew Marvell had it, "a fine and private place"? No. Specific, individual tombs didn't always exist; graves were routinely added to or reused, the best illustration of which is the graveyard scene in Hamlet, with Yorick's skull turning up as Ophelia's grave is prepared. (Notice also that there seems to be nothing odd about Hamlet hanging around during this, another sign of how the cemetery wasn't detached from normal social life.) Judgment, which early on was thought to happen at the moment of death, was in a later view postponed and was amenable to earthly intervention. This, along with new worries about the acquisition of riches, brought about a custom of endowing chapels and setting aside funds for dozens, scores, hundreds of Masses for the dead, which had its own terminology (an obituary was a register noting for whom Mass must be said on which days; a Gregorian was a unit of either 300 or 365 Masses).
Ariès's treatment of the modern and contemporary periods is just as striking, in part because it gives social and historical depth to things we're at least partly aware of already: the medicalization of death, for instance, which has removed it, for the most part, to hospitals or hospices and contributed to the formation of a taboo (although there are signs that this is changing). Possibly the most curious element of the modern period is one Ariès doesn't stress: the retreat of hell and damnation. It would be risky of me to judge whether religious belief is still declining in Europe, but it's certainly not uncommon in America, yet attitudes toward the afterlife among the faithful might seem cavalier to Christians of earlier eras. Is my view faulty, or have the evangelicals transformed judgment into something that happens to others, not themselves?
Have cemeteries always been solemn, quiet, isolated places? No. As Ariès remarks, "The church was the town hall, and the cemetery was the public square," where markets were established and gatherings took place; indigents and outcasts even lived there. Has the grave always been, as Andrew Marvell had it, "a fine and private place"? No. Specific, individual tombs didn't always exist; graves were routinely added to or reused, the best illustration of which is the graveyard scene in Hamlet, with Yorick's skull turning up as Ophelia's grave is prepared. (Notice also that there seems to be nothing odd about Hamlet hanging around during this, another sign of how the cemetery wasn't detached from normal social life.) Judgment, which early on was thought to happen at the moment of death, was in a later view postponed and was amenable to earthly intervention. This, along with new worries about the acquisition of riches, brought about a custom of endowing chapels and setting aside funds for dozens, scores, hundreds of Masses for the dead, which had its own terminology (an obituary was a register noting for whom Mass must be said on which days; a Gregorian was a unit of either 300 or 365 Masses).
Ariès's treatment of the modern and contemporary periods is just as striking, in part because it gives social and historical depth to things we're at least partly aware of already: the medicalization of death, for instance, which has removed it, for the most part, to hospitals or hospices and contributed to the formation of a taboo (although there are signs that this is changing). Possibly the most curious element of the modern period is one Ariès doesn't stress: the retreat of hell and damnation. It would be risky of me to judge whether religious belief is still declining in Europe, but it's certainly not uncommon in America, yet attitudes toward the afterlife among the faithful might seem cavalier to Christians of earlier eras. Is my view faulty, or have the evangelicals transformed judgment into something that happens to others, not themselves?
May 11, 2025
I read this book a number of years ago. At 614 page's it is a long read but very interesting.
It covers Western attitudes and customs from the early Christian period to present day.
Burial practices, Tombs and epitaphs.Cemetaries,
changing attitudes on the afterlife and eternity.
A fascinating historical read that is well researched by the author.
It covers Western attitudes and customs from the early Christian period to present day.
Burial practices, Tombs and epitaphs.Cemetaries,
changing attitudes on the afterlife and eternity.
A fascinating historical read that is well researched by the author.
November 26, 2024
In Czech, this book is called "The History of Death", but it should actually be called "How people viewed death, burials and cemeteries in France and its neighbouring countries in the past 800 years." It is not a comprehensive study of a variety of mourning and death rituals across continents and cultures (I don´t think such a book could even exist), but if you accept that, this is still a superb study of funereal culture and, to a certain extent, a fascinating exploration of the human psyche.
August 8, 2012
Study of the Western view of death and burial, starting in the Middle Ages. It's intriguing to read how our attitudes about death have changed through the centuries, as well as watch a scholar sleuth his way through the historical clues and interpret the evidence.
April 3, 2024
This should actually be called The Christian and its Church's Interpretation of The Hour of Our Death.
The majority of this book is given over to Western Christian beliefs and their standpoint on death and I therefore have zero interest in it.
I found the lack of scope and diversity severely wanting.
A massive disappointment, a non-keeper and a don't come near me again!
The majority of this book is given over to Western Christian beliefs and their standpoint on death and I therefore have zero interest in it.
I found the lack of scope and diversity severely wanting.
A massive disappointment, a non-keeper and a don't come near me again!
January 14, 2024
Me pareció un trabajo fascinante el que realiza el autor. Él traza un recorrido histórico sirviéndose de todo tipo de material y puede situar de manera muy clara cada momento histórico sobre la concepción de la muerte. No es un libro ligero pero no por eso menos interesante.
July 9, 2019
I really loved this book, and the attitudes presented in this book. Quotes, songs, and tons of photos all make this amazing classic very readable. I recommend it to all who have an interest in death, a feat we can't escape.
August 23, 2007
This is a comprehensive survey of one thousand years (longer, really) of western attitudes towards death. By "western" were mostly talking "French", although Aries does include digressions into German, Italian, Spanish, English and American culture. I didn't find the intense focus on France to detract from the overall majesty of this 600+ page opus. For most of the thousand years, the "attitude towards death" that Aries is describing crosses national boundaires.
Aries divides his study into four overlapping historical periods: "The Tame Death", "The Death of the Self", "The Death of the Other", and "The Invisible Death". The Tame Death roughly corresponds with the pre-Christian and early middle ages. This period was characterized by a meek acceptance of passing into a long period of sleep. Death is social, and the death ritual has a central place in the society.
"The Death of the Self" is moves more into the middle and late middle ages. Here, death is used by the mendicant orders of Christianity to convert a quasi-pagan population. Thus, there is a corresponding rise in individual's concern with their own death. Also during this period, there is a rise in materialism, which creates a duality between the love of things and the renunciation of the material world which is supposed to preceed death.
The Death of the Other and the Invisible Death are familiar to most modern folks. The Invisible Death is corresponds with the post WWII American model, and the Death of the Other largely corresponds to the romantic movement (lots of weeping, lots of drama).
Aries basic thesis delves into "the Invention of Tradition" territory, i.e. that modern attitudes towards death are just that, modern, and largely without antecedent in history. Aries also points out that pre-Christian traditions of death have persisted far longer in the west then one might suppose. His main illustration for this contention is the observations that the concept of "purgatory" was not fully accepted until well into the 17th and 18th century (purgatory being an exclusively Chrisitian concept).
The research and execution can only be considered awe inspiring, but the thesis less so. Any modern reader of history is aware that "tradition" is invented. Aries is less concerned as to why this might be the case, but for me, the "why" is the interesting question.
Aries divides his study into four overlapping historical periods: "The Tame Death", "The Death of the Self", "The Death of the Other", and "The Invisible Death". The Tame Death roughly corresponds with the pre-Christian and early middle ages. This period was characterized by a meek acceptance of passing into a long period of sleep. Death is social, and the death ritual has a central place in the society.
"The Death of the Self" is moves more into the middle and late middle ages. Here, death is used by the mendicant orders of Christianity to convert a quasi-pagan population. Thus, there is a corresponding rise in individual's concern with their own death. Also during this period, there is a rise in materialism, which creates a duality between the love of things and the renunciation of the material world which is supposed to preceed death.
The Death of the Other and the Invisible Death are familiar to most modern folks. The Invisible Death is corresponds with the post WWII American model, and the Death of the Other largely corresponds to the romantic movement (lots of weeping, lots of drama).
Aries basic thesis delves into "the Invention of Tradition" territory, i.e. that modern attitudes towards death are just that, modern, and largely without antecedent in history. Aries also points out that pre-Christian traditions of death have persisted far longer in the west then one might suppose. His main illustration for this contention is the observations that the concept of "purgatory" was not fully accepted until well into the 17th and 18th century (purgatory being an exclusively Chrisitian concept).
The research and execution can only be considered awe inspiring, but the thesis less so. Any modern reader of history is aware that "tradition" is invented. Aries is less concerned as to why this might be the case, but for me, the "why" is the interesting question.
October 7, 2015
I've been waiting to read this book since I first became aware of it sometime in the early noughties. And I'm very glad I finally took the time to read its 600+ pages. The translation left a little to be desired, but didn't mar the essence of the tractate, which is a charting of the views on death and eschatology in the West during the last 1000 years. The focus is sometimes rather narrowly French, occasionally expanding to include England and, more rarely, the US. I would have preferred a more widely cast net to cover differences (and similarities) in views across Europe, but the research that Ariès has put into the book is obviously extensive as it is, so this criticism is perhaps unfair. The book gets ever more interesting towards the end, for me, where the author's theories about the contemporary denial of death and mourning tally rather well with Heidegger's criticism of technology and McGilchrist's musing on the rise of left-hemisphere thinking in the West.
I have been interested in death, in a rather melancholy and romantic Victorian way, ever since my teenage years, so obviously the topic holds a great deal of fascination for me, but I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this book to anyone who has ever pondered the reasons for our customs and attitudes as they relate to death, our own or that of others. In fact, why don't you read it now in the lead-up to Halloween?
I have been interested in death, in a rather melancholy and romantic Victorian way, ever since my teenage years, so obviously the topic holds a great deal of fascination for me, but I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this book to anyone who has ever pondered the reasons for our customs and attitudes as they relate to death, our own or that of others. In fact, why don't you read it now in the lead-up to Halloween?
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June 19, 2013This is a huge book, focusing on a thousand years’ worth of Western attitudes toward death and dying. Writing in the late 1970s (this translation by Helen Weaver is copyright 1981), Ariès refers to Jessica Mitford and Elisabeth Kübler-Ross but many other sources as well: letters, literary works, church records, paintings and sculpture, and the design of burial places from churches to civic cemeteries. Much of the evidence is French, but he also brings in examples from Russia, England, and America and draws on history, religion, sociology, economics, and literature. The text is very readable, but clearer connections between the two sections of black-and-white photographs and the text would be helpful. His conclusion is hopeful, looking toward a reconciliation of death with happiness, without fear. I wonder what he would make of the current fascination with zombies in popular culture.
January 13, 2016
Very intriguing history of attitudes towards death in the West, particularly France. I would have enjoyed it even more if there was less about tombs and epitaphs etc. From the 1700s onwards was particularly interesting because it puts a lot of the novels I read into perspective and why they are filled with death and longing for death and contentment with death.
December 8, 2018
The description of this work accurately describes this exquisite book. It was important to me when I first read it. It still touches me even though I have read many other works on this topic. I cannot praise it sufficiently.
February 11, 2021
This is a book that explores Western culture and it's attitudes and practices regarding death over the last thousand years. This feels like one of the most important books I've ever read. It's dry, academic, and not something I would want to pick up everyday (especially during a pandemic), but that does not belie the important conversations and ideas it is trying to share.
The majority of this book's focus is on France, following various perspectives and writings from the early Middle Ages to now. Britain, Spain, and the United States and the people who live there do make appearances when relevant. The important guiding idea in this history is Aries's classification of how we perceive death, which he classifies into five perspectives: the tame death (which predominated in a mostly pagan Europe), the death of the self (1100s), remote and imminent death (1400s), the death of the other (1700s), and the invisible death (modern times). Aries defines these perspectives as to how they relate to the following four themes: awareness of the individual, defense of society against untamed nature, belief in an afterlife, and belief in the existence of evil.
While exploring these themes, Aries analyzes medieval poetry and literature, explores burial practices, the emergence of cemeteries, recounts epitaphs, and hundreds of other little topics which I knew nothing about. Did you know the village cemetery used to be the center of social life, and there was even a French brothel run out of one back in the day? These ideas and practices feel so alien compared to modern times. Two of my favorite chapters, The Dead Body and The Living Dead were fascinating to me because they examine the changing roles of physicians and medicine over this thousand year history.
In the penultimate chapter, there is a portion examining Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilych. I read that book for an undergraduate class, referencing it as a comparison of how we suffer through disease and death and how modern it still feels. Aries sent my head spinning because he analyzes this book as an example of how much Western culture has changed since the early 900s and it's treatment of death. How empty and pushed out of sight it has become.
This is a serious examination of how death impacts Western culture and society. One of the strongest points it makes is how much we have changed. Where once death was a common community event, where we received visitors and strangers to our homes to share final greetings and goodbyes on our death beds, now it is pushed away. We die in hospitals and nursing homes alone save for the people society has deemed our final caretakers. Our society does not acknowledge death because every aspect of it is uncomfortable.
And in so doing, Aries makes the argument that there is something priceless that Western culture has lost. I work in healthcare. I have seen death. I agree with him. That is why I believe this book to be so important, and paramount to any discussion or reflection on death.
The majority of this book's focus is on France, following various perspectives and writings from the early Middle Ages to now. Britain, Spain, and the United States and the people who live there do make appearances when relevant. The important guiding idea in this history is Aries's classification of how we perceive death, which he classifies into five perspectives: the tame death (which predominated in a mostly pagan Europe), the death of the self (1100s), remote and imminent death (1400s), the death of the other (1700s), and the invisible death (modern times). Aries defines these perspectives as to how they relate to the following four themes: awareness of the individual, defense of society against untamed nature, belief in an afterlife, and belief in the existence of evil.
While exploring these themes, Aries analyzes medieval poetry and literature, explores burial practices, the emergence of cemeteries, recounts epitaphs, and hundreds of other little topics which I knew nothing about. Did you know the village cemetery used to be the center of social life, and there was even a French brothel run out of one back in the day? These ideas and practices feel so alien compared to modern times. Two of my favorite chapters, The Dead Body and The Living Dead were fascinating to me because they examine the changing roles of physicians and medicine over this thousand year history.
In the penultimate chapter, there is a portion examining Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilych. I read that book for an undergraduate class, referencing it as a comparison of how we suffer through disease and death and how modern it still feels. Aries sent my head spinning because he analyzes this book as an example of how much Western culture has changed since the early 900s and it's treatment of death. How empty and pushed out of sight it has become.
This is a serious examination of how death impacts Western culture and society. One of the strongest points it makes is how much we have changed. Where once death was a common community event, where we received visitors and strangers to our homes to share final greetings and goodbyes on our death beds, now it is pushed away. We die in hospitals and nursing homes alone save for the people society has deemed our final caretakers. Our society does not acknowledge death because every aspect of it is uncomfortable.
And in so doing, Aries makes the argument that there is something priceless that Western culture has lost. I work in healthcare. I have seen death. I agree with him. That is why I believe this book to be so important, and paramount to any discussion or reflection on death.
January 16, 2023
Oof. This book is absolutely huge, and dense, so it's a slow read and obviously took me a very long time to work through. It rewarded the effort, however. Ariès has dug deep into his analysis of the elements of human thought and practice related to death and what it means, and has identified key strains of thought that influence those thoughts and practices over a thousand years of European history. He has also traced those threads over time, pinpointing subtle shifts in understanding that took place over hundreds of years, sometimes in opposition to the formal religious philosophy of the time. Ideas about individualism, the conception of an afterlife, funerary customs, wills, beliefs about the nature of sin, preoccupation with sanitation and cleanliness, the idea of dividing the soul from the body, practicalities of decomposition, the late rise of individual burial plots, and so many other things are touched on and explored here. It's a richly layered, fascinating tapestry that rewards not only the morbid imagination but really explores the full complexity of human thought.
Naturally, an academic work like this will have weaknesses, and I noted some. Primarily they have to do with the focus of the work on European sources and thoughts, but unevenly. I think I would have minded this less if he had focused entirely on French practice, but although the bulk of the research and analysis is conducted using French sources, other European sources and sites are roped in here and there to support a point. For example, Ariès is willing to consider some English sources, occasionally references southern Italy and other Mediterranean sources, and spends some time investigating the practices in the colonial and post-colonial USA, though not exhaustively. This is already a massive undertaking covering a huge amount of cultural real estate and clearly adding more of the world's practices to the analysis would have been even more unmanageable. On the other hand, it's hard to avoid a bit of a sense that Ariès was led by his interests, not solely the evidence.
Anyway, it's a very good book regardless, and I learned tons of interesting, unsettling things which I now intend to break out at parties to further cement my status as a weirdo who reads mortuary history for fun. Huzzah!
Naturally, an academic work like this will have weaknesses, and I noted some. Primarily they have to do with the focus of the work on European sources and thoughts, but unevenly. I think I would have minded this less if he had focused entirely on French practice, but although the bulk of the research and analysis is conducted using French sources, other European sources and sites are roped in here and there to support a point. For example, Ariès is willing to consider some English sources, occasionally references southern Italy and other Mediterranean sources, and spends some time investigating the practices in the colonial and post-colonial USA, though not exhaustively. This is already a massive undertaking covering a huge amount of cultural real estate and clearly adding more of the world's practices to the analysis would have been even more unmanageable. On the other hand, it's hard to avoid a bit of a sense that Ariès was led by his interests, not solely the evidence.
Anyway, it's a very good book regardless, and I learned tons of interesting, unsettling things which I now intend to break out at parties to further cement my status as a weirdo who reads mortuary history for fun. Huzzah!
January 3, 2022
This is Philippe Aries' life's work, or so it feels. I am glad I read all of it, but I feel I would have gotten more out of the book if I had instead read the last two chapters first and then, if I felt the urge to read more, read those. Still. The book is a good examination of death, in many ways quite specific and almost personal. In other ways it is the examination of how changes within western society have sped up over the course of a few thousand years, using death as the path (and all the pieces associated with death).
Read this book (at least the last two chapters) if you live in Europe or North America (and even South America) just so you understand where your ideas about death (and there are a lot) may come from.
Read this book (at least the last two chapters) if you live in Europe or North America (and even South America) just so you understand where your ideas about death (and there are a lot) may come from.
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June 11, 2023Clearly I did not read all 700 pages of this, but because this was one of the key texts in my thesis, I read a fair amount - more than half. Hence, I will mark it as read (because I want it on my school books shelf) but will not count it towards the reading challenge. A compromise.
Given that I will be continuing with this topic, the book will someday be fully read as well. Regarldess, Ariès is my man; he did excellent work putting all of this together and I can certainly appreciate that he did not write it all down in the style of philosophers (meaning that no one will understand anything. Lookind at you, Heidegger). Will purchase my own copy so I can write into it as much as my heart desires.
Given that I will be continuing with this topic, the book will someday be fully read as well. Regarldess, Ariès is my man; he did excellent work putting all of this together and I can certainly appreciate that he did not write it all down in the style of philosophers (meaning that no one will understand anything. Lookind at you, Heidegger). Will purchase my own copy so I can write into it as much as my heart desires.
December 30, 2020
Wow. This book. It says it is the culmination of 20 years of research, and it feels that way. The first few chapters felt longer and drier, perhaps because it necessarily relied on art history and ecclesiastical writing for Aries to draw his conclusions. The later chapters, however, and the comparatively fast movement towards our current state of "medicalization and denial", are particularly fascinating. I think in part because due to their comparative historical recency and thus the increase in available records (e.g. the family diaries and letters of La Ferronnays), Aries is able to ask more interesting questions. Regardless, I am actually rather surprised at how much I enjoyed reading this and I'm sure I'll be thinking about it for a long time to come!
January 10, 2021
Un mattone molto approfondito, documentato e sicuramente interessante sul tema della morte, affrontato da uno dei più importanti storici francesi del '900.
L'unica pecca è che è quasi totalmente franco-centrico, e non tratta - se non marginalmente - il resto d'Europa. In alcune occasioni tende a generalizzare tutta l'Europa partendo dall'esperienza francese. Per onestà avrebbe potuto intitolarsi "I francesi e la morte dal medioevo a oggi". A parte questo rimane un importante testo di riferimento per chiunque studi la morte da un punto di vista storico (e anche per chi studia il medioevo francese).
L'unica pecca è che è quasi totalmente franco-centrico, e non tratta - se non marginalmente - il resto d'Europa. In alcune occasioni tende a generalizzare tutta l'Europa partendo dall'esperienza francese. Per onestà avrebbe potuto intitolarsi "I francesi e la morte dal medioevo a oggi". A parte questo rimane un importante testo di riferimento per chiunque studi la morte da un punto di vista storico (e anche per chi studia il medioevo francese).
June 25, 2023
A splendid and tremendously thorough, albeit sometimes plodding, study of the changing attitudes, beliefs, and practices surrounding death and dying from early Middle Ages to the 1970s. This book will drastically change the way you think about the milieu we exist in.
There are effectively two strains running through the book: (1) what do people believe about death and dying (including the afterlife, what is a good death, evil) and (2) how is this reflected in the development of burial practices. I found the former to be more compellingly and concisely written while the latter could be somewhat dense and repetitive, although still fascinating.
There are effectively two strains running through the book: (1) what do people believe about death and dying (including the afterlife, what is a good death, evil) and (2) how is this reflected in the development of burial practices. I found the former to be more compellingly and concisely written while the latter could be somewhat dense and repetitive, although still fascinating.
January 23, 2018
This is a 4-star book for me (as I was at my threshold on the topic) but with the breadth of research and detail, I couldn't rate it lower than a five. It's sublimely impressive. It's exhaustive and exhausting.
I can't recall a book so thorough since Varieties of Religious Experience for William James (which I have not finished).
However, it's so narrow and specific that it's much more a textbook then Death: A Graveside Companion or from Here to Eternity.
This is much a Western view of Death (particularly French and mainly Catholic).
I can't recall a book so thorough since Varieties of Religious Experience for William James (which I have not finished).
However, it's so narrow and specific that it's much more a textbook then Death: A Graveside Companion or from Here to Eternity.
This is much a Western view of Death (particularly French and mainly Catholic).
July 3, 2019
Ongelofelijk interessant maar heel feitelijk geschreven, te veel informatie en te ongestructureerd naar mijn aanvoelen. 600 pagina’s zouden kunnen gereduceerd worden tot 300. Ik worstelde door tot 350 pagina’s en dan heb ik de handdoek in de ring gegooid ... met enige spijt
May 1, 2020
Read for deep research during the writing of Conversations on Dying, but I have to be honest, in the end I had to give it up. It was too dense and academic for my purposes. It's a classic for sure, but like many a classic I suspect it's very rarely read.
May 31, 2020
I couldn’t read this huge book from cover to cover, but the many parts I did read were very interesting - the entire undertaking is. Wondering whether the translation from French makes it read a bit “choppy”.
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March 23, 2025it's not a history of the metap[physical confrontation of death, as philosophy or ideology, but rather the ceremony surrounding the physical process of dying. the former set of stuff in contained within but I had a very hard time ploughing through what wasn't heavily skimming many sections.
June 8, 2025
gostei. é, de certo modo, uma espécie de bíblia da representatividade da morte — densa, por vezes prolixa. mas creio que cabe ao leitor encontrar o ponto que mais lhe interessa. para mim, que estou pesquisando essa temática, foi bom percorrer o livro por inteiro.
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