| Edition |
1st Vintage books ed. |
| Description |
xix, 296 pages |
|
text txt rdacontent |
|
unmediated n rdamedia |
|
volume nc rdacarrier |
| Note |
"January 2000"--Title page verso. |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| Contents |
Editor's note -- Foreword -- Introduction -- Not selling -- American way of death -- Funeral transaction -- Artifacts -- Story of service -- Rationale -- Allied industries -- God's little million-dollar acre -- Shroud-land revisited -- Cremation -- What the public wants -- Fashions in funerals -- Newest profession -- Nosy clergy -- Federal Trade Commission -- Global village of the dead -- Funerals in England then and now -- Press and protest -- Pay now-die poorer -- New hope for the dead -- Directory of not-for-profit funeral and memorial societies -- Index. |
| Summary |
Overview: Only the scathing wit and searching intelligence of Jessica Mitford could turn an expose of the American funeral industry into a book that is at once deadly serious and side-splittingly funny. When first published in 1963 this landmark of investigative journalism became a runaway bestseller and resulted in legislation to protect grieving families from the unscrupulous sales practices of those in "the dismal trade." Just before her death in 1996, Mitford thoroughly revised and updated her classic study. The American Way of Death Revisited confronts new trends, including the success of the profession's lobbyists in Washington, inflated cremation costs, the telemarketing of pay-in-advance graves, and the effects of monopolies in a death-care industry now dominated by multinational corporations. With its hard-nosed consumer activism and a satiric vision out of Evelyn Waugh's novel The Loved One, The American Way of Death Revisited will not fail to inform, delight, and disturb. |
| Subject |
Mitford, Jessica, 1917-1996. American way of death.
|
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Undertakers and undertaking -- United States.
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Funeral rites and ceremonies -- Economic aspects -- United States.
|
| ISBN |
9780679771869 |
|
0679771867 |
|
