Familiar and Alien Deaths: Philippe Ariés Western Attitudes Towards Death

While many historians explore the history of nations and kings, in 1974, the French historian Philippe Ariés explored what may be the sole constant in human existence: death. In a series of lectures entitled "Western Attitudes Towards Death", Ariés contends that the perception and reception of death reflects the changing understanding of the self in relation to the world, from a life fated to death in the Middle Ages, to one in deep denial of its own mortality in the industrial world.

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