History of Suicide: Voluntary Death in Western Culture (Medicine and Culture) - Softcover

Minois, Georges

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0801866472 ISBN 13: 9780801866470

Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001

Synopsis

Selected by Choice Magazine as an Outstanding Academic Title

In this compact and illuminating history, Georges Minois examines how a culture's attitudes about suicide reflect its larger beliefs and values―attitudes toward life and death, duty and honor, pain and pleasure. Minois begins his survey with classical Greece and Rome, where suicide was acceptable―even heroic―under some circumstances. With the rise of Christianity, however, suicide was unequivocally condemned as self-murder and an insult to God. With the Renaissance and its renewed interest in classical culture, suicide reemerged as a philosophical issue. Minois finds examples of changing attitudes in key Renaissance texts by Bacon, Montaigne, Sidney, Donne, and Shakespeare.

By 1700, the term suicide had replaced self-murder and the subject began to interest the emerging scientific disciplines. Minois follows the ongoing evaluation of suicide through the Enlightenment and the Romantic periods, and he examines attitudes that emerge in nineteenth- and twentieth-century science, law, philosophy, and literature. Minois concludes with comments on the most recent turn in this long and complex history―the emotional debate over euthanasia, assisted suicide, and the right to die.

About this title

Review:

"This book, lucidly translated, makes compulsive reading."

(Roy Porter The Times of London)

"Minois's book follows the religious, philosophical, literary, and judicial debate for and against self-murder from antiquity to the end of the Enlightenment, demonstrating the close connection between political power, religious authority, social status, and the freedom to die... Minois's study is detailed and thorough... Gory anecdotes and effective reference to overarching intellectual trends make the book edifying and morbidly enjoyable."

(Kirkus Reviews)

"Minois... has provided a timely chronicle tracing the evolution of societal attitudes toward suicide... Minois writes in an unadorned, concise prose that aids him in treating a serious subject in a serious manner. Although his own convictions on the issue are clear, Minois treats both sides of our current debate with objectivity, understanding, and compassion."

(Booklist)

"The History of suicide has come of age. After a century of sociological inquiry, historians over the last decade have now embraced this all-too-human act and have produced remarkable results."

(D. J. A. Matthew American Historical Review)

"Minois has succeeded in pulling together a wide range of materials, and in reminding us how elite attitudes to suicide shifted, and that those shifts may well serve as pointers to some more general developments in the intellectual history of Europe."

(J. A. Sharpe Journal of Early Modern History)

"A broad and thought-provoking discussion of the complexities of suicide. Continually reminding us that the legalities and theoretical discussions of suicide often do not coincide with the reality of suicide, Minois focuses his discussion around Hamlet's famous question, 'to be or not to be,' and this proves to be an effective way to organize and present the large and dense amount of material... This book provides a useful and impressive collection of data and an absorbing discussion of attitudes toward voluntary death."

(Elise P. Garrison Religious Studies Review)

"A comprehensive and intriguing study of the grim commingling of resolve and mystery that has characterized the act of and reaction to suicide since the Roman Empire gave way to the Middle Ages in Europe... Balanced, engaging and sufficiently detailed with dark truths to keep the extramural reader interested."

(Thomas Lynch, author of The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade, in The Washington Times)

Synopsis:

In this history, Georges Minois examines how a culture's attitudes about suicide reflect its larger beliefs and values - attitudes toward life and death, duty and honour, pain and pleasure. Minois begins his survey with classical Greece and Rome, where suicide was acceptable - even heroic - under some circumstances. With the rise of Christianity, however, suicide was unequivocally condemned as self-murder and an insult to God. With the Renaissance and its renewed interest in classical culture, suicide re-emerged as a philosophical issue. Minois finds examples of changing attitudes in key Renaissance texts by Bacon, Montaigne, Sidney, Donne and Shakespeare. By 1700, the term "suicide" had replaced "self-murder" and the subject began to interest the emerging scientific disciplines. Minois follows the ongoing evaluation of suicide through the Enlightenment and the Romantic periods, and he examines attitudes that emerge in 19th- and 20th-century science, law, philosophy and literature. Minois concludes with comments on the most recent turn in this long and complex history - the emotional debate over euthanasia, assisted suicide, and the right to die.

About this edition

• Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0801866472
• ISBN 13: 9780801866470
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 400