This 2002 book is an exploration in social history, showing how the practices surrounding death and burial can illumine urban culture and experience. Vanessa Harding focuses on the crowded and turbulent worlds of early modern London and Paris, and makes rich use of contemporary documentation to compare and contrast their experience of dealing with the dead. The two cities shared many of the problems and pressures of urban life, including high mortality rates and a tradition of Christian burial and there are many similarities in their responses to death. The treatment of the dead reveals the communities' preoccupation with the use of space, control of the physical environment and the ordering of society and social behaviour.

This 2002 book is an exploration in social history, showing how the practices surrounding death can illumine urban culture.

About the Author
Vanessa Harding is Senior Lecturer in London History at Birkbeck, London and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

Reviews
"This is undoubtedly a major scholarly contribution to the literature and research on death in the early modern period, underscored by the impressive seven pages of archival sources listed in the bibliography. Harding has provided a monograph which is both detailed and thorough, but also fascinating and highly readable." Sixteenth Century Journal
"Harding's meticulous research relies heavily on archival sources sources in the two capitals. The result is a fascinating study designed largely for specialists, the richness of which cannot be appreciated from this brief review. Highly recommended." Choice
"[Harding] offers a felicitous blend of archival empiricism and theories about identity, civic ritual, and social change...This study is rich in data, in anecdote, and in general reflections about early modern history." Journal of Interdisciplinary History
"[A] valuable addition to the literature on early modern death and dying." H-ALBION
"This book supplies a unique perspecctive on the complex issues of dying and burial." Renaissance Quarterly
"This is an excellent book. It is clearly structured, beautifully written, and thoroughly researched...this is an admirable piece of historical scholarship and an enormously valuable contribution to both urban history and the history of death." Albion
"...An excellent example of careful research clearly presented in lucid prose that is rich in anecdote." Seventeenth-Century News
"Vanessa Harding has assembled an impressive amount of primary and secondary research into this very interesting and very readable book." Comitatus



Book Information
ISBN 9780521009744
Author Vanessa Harding
Format Paperback
Page Count 360
Imprint Cambridge University Press
Publisher Cambridge University Press
Weight(grams) 542g
Dimensions(mm) 228mm * 150mm * 20mm