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Death, Gender and Ethnicity
DAVID FIELD, JENNY HOCKEY & NEIL SMALL, Eds, 1997
London, Routledge
228 pp., 0 415 14678 X, hb L45.00; 0415 14679 8, pb :13.99
The death of Diana occurred after this book was written but readers may be tempted to consider whether this particular event has altered some of the ideas in this book about grief, images and commemorations. Reports of Diana's death and its circumstances are highly gendered while her companions and place of death raise issues of ethnicity. This book provides a helpful back-cloth to discussions of that particular `fateful moment', for today such a book would almost invariably have to incorporate responses to that landmark event.
This is a well-edited book, loosely based around contributions to a symposium on the social aspect of death, dying and bereavement. The contributors draw from sociological and anthropological traditions with helpful introductory and concluding chapters from...