This tome is more of a textbook, and it offers a detailed view of how death shapes our societies and our individual lives. Using sociology, anthropology, psychology, and history, Kearl shows how death affects how we live in a multitude of ways. He demonstrates the inextricable linkage between death statistics and other aspects of our society such that these numbers can be used to measure things like civil rights progress. Collective societal mourning and the funeral industry are among the other topics covered. This work provides an expansive view of how death shapes us as human individuals, as families, peers, societies, and a global community. The author introduces the reader to a completely different aspect of death, its affect on life as a whole.