{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.025709515859766278, 'fraction_numerical': 0.002337228714524207, 'mean_word_length': 5.040322580645161, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
What death means now: thinking critically about dying and grieving

In What Death Means Now, Tony Walter offers an insightful and erudite exploration of death and dying, in a manner accessible to a general readership or those with a more specialist background. Although a Professor of Sociology, he draws together work from a variety of disciplines to present a comprehensive overview of relevant ideas and arguments. Thus, a strength of the text is how it incorporates a necessarily broad and holistic understanding of society’s approach to death and dying, highlighting how ‘social, economic, religious and demographic changed often have an impact on the human experience of death and loss’ (p. 3). In summary, What Death Means Now offers a comprehensive understanding of the numerous issues associated with death and dying in contemporary Western culture, including but not limited to: ideas of a ‘good death’, funerals and disposal, end of life care, changing ideas of ‘healthy’ grief and mourning, as well as the growing role of digital media. In the conclusion, Walter revisits ideas from throughout the text in order to successfully draw the book together as a whole and connect together the various issues raised. Whilst the text presents a wealth of information, grounded in theory and empirical study, it also offers the reader food for thought in the issues that it raises and several interesting references to encourage further study. Moreover, the questions presented at the end of each chapter highlight stimulating areas for discussion and could be used in a versatile range of ways, such as seminars, reading groups or even just solitary wonderings. Although focused on Western countries, Walter remains, as always, aware of this cultural leaning and explicitly recognises this throughout, occasionally contrasting these assumptions with Japan in order to highlight the importance of cultural context. For example, chapter 3 titled ‘A Better Way to Die?’ challenges Western assumptions of a good death being one where the dying are able to make autonomous decisions by noting that ‘the worst evil to befall Japanese citizens toward the end of life is not lack of choice, but abandonment’ (p. 38). Highlighting that views towards death and dying are not ‘one size fits all’ emphasises the value of exploring a multitude of countries and cultures as a way to critique our own conventions. Overall, Walter provides the reader with an engaging and thoughtful exploration of contemporary Western attitudes towards death and dying. He ends by discussing the notion of ‘pervasive death’, the idea that death’s presence in ordinary life is beginning to re-emerge, and crucially for the progression of Death Studies, leaves the reader looking into the future with the following thought: ‘How many twenty-first century people will embrace the new paradigm of pervasive death, and in what ways, or how they will combine it with the old paradigm of separation, only time will tell’ (p. 114).