Book description
Passing on: The Social Organization of Dying [Jun 01, 1967] Sudnow, David
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Why read it?
1 author picked Passing on as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
Sudnow is maybe the most-assigned book I use in teaching. I start every medical sociology course with Sudnow – if you can get students to understand that death itself is not just “real” and self-evident but socially constructed, then you can calm them down enough to listen to how birth or cancer or Attention Deficit Disorder is socially constructed. This short book – just 176 pages – was based on Sudnow’s dissertation (thus also good to share with anyone struggling through writing a dissertation!) The short message is that ‘social value’ affected attempts to revive people, to rescue them from…
From Barbara's list on The best books on the ever-more-timely topic of death and dying.
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