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International Handbook of Funeral Customs. By Kodo Matsunami. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1998. 204p. $75 (ISBN 0-31330443-2).
Funeral ceremonies are the result of a complicated mix of religion, politics, tradition, geography, and even climate. International Handbook of Funeral Customs endeavors to bring together much of this information into brief overviews of the funeral customs of countries worldwide.
The slim volume is organized roughly along continental lines with chapters covering Asia, Oceania, Africa, Middle East, Europe, Commonwealth of Independent States, North and Central America, and South America. The book presents each country's funeral practices in alphabetical order by country, and the author discusses some regional and differing religious customs within each country. Country entries average somewhere around three or...