{"product_id":"the-sacred-remains-american-attitudes-toward-death-17991883","title":"The Sacred Remains: American Attitudes Toward Death  1799-1883","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis fascinating book explores the changing attitudes toward death and the dead in northern Protestant communities during the nineteenth-century. Gary Laderman offers insights into the construction of an \"American way of death \" illuminating the central role of the Civil War and tracing the birth of the funeral industry in the decades following the war. Drawing on medical histories  religious documents  personal diaries and letters  literature  painting  and photography. Laderman examines the cultural transformations that led to nationally organized death specialists  the practice of embalming  and the commodification of the corpse. These cultural changes included the development of liberal theology  which provided more spiritual views of heaven and the afterlife: the concern for health  which turned those who managed death toward more scientific treatment of bodies: and growing sentimentalism  which produced an increased desire to gaze upon the corpse or to take and keep death photographs. In particular  Laderman focuses on the transforming effect of the Civil War  which presented so many Americans with dead relatives who needed to be recovered  viewed  and given a \"proper burial.\"\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44964131766325,"sku":"ByrdShop_0300064322","price":47.4,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780300064322.jpg?v=1770450306","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-sacred-remains-american-attitudes-toward-death-17991883","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}