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Encyclopedia of Death and Dying. Ed. by Glennys Howarth and Oliver Leaman, London: Routledge, 2001. 556p. $135 (ISBN 0-415-18825-3). www.routledge.com.
Encyclopedia of Death and Dying covers various psychological, anthropological, religious, historical, sociological, philosophical, literary, medical, and cultural studies topics relating to death in 409 entries over 484 pages. Its scope is sometimes surprising: while entries on bereavement and epitaphs are to be expected in this sort of reference work, those on death by chocolate and the Internet are unexpected. Coverage of some topics, though, is lacking. For example, Islam gets only brief mention in the entry on mysticism and it is not mentioned in the entry on pilgrimage, despite pilgrimages to the tombs of dead saints forming a key component of Sufism.
Written by hundreds of scholars, many from the United Kingdom, the entries are generally short, ranging from a paragraph to two pages in length, and are signed by their authors. Five tables and forty-five illustrations supplement...