Experiences Near Death: Beyond Medicine and Religion [Hardcover]

Although anything having to do with DEATH may be a subject about which we try not to think too much or often, I felt attracted by this book because it offers a global sociological framework for understanding how we human beings have faced Near Death Experiences in the last few decades so I decided it to give it a chance, in despite of not finding previous comments on it.

The summary provided by the "Book description" is fairly accurate, therefore, I will only point out that the central question the author is posing in this book is: what does the Near-Death Experience (and the community and the academic reactions to it) look like in various contexts? Kellehear has attempted (and, as far as I am concerned, he has achieved with this book) to break away from the polarized and restricted parameters of religious or medical debates, because he believes the Near-Death Experience is more significant than an interesting footnote in the medical literature and far more important socially than its possible value as evidence for life after death.

All that and much more is developed in 189 pages (plus bibliography), the book being divided in the following parts and chapters: THE NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCE: Undoing the stereotypes. 1.- Popular images of the Near-Death Experience. 2.- Near-Death Experiences across Cultures. 3.- Unusual Circumstances, Unusual Experiences.// THE COMMUNITY REACTION: From Fear to Eternity. 4.- Community Reactions. 5.- Some Rhyme and Reasons. 6.- In Pursuit of the Ideal Society.//THE ACADEMIC REACTION: The Politics of Dismissal and apathy. 7.- The Rhetoric of Neuroscience. 8.- Psychoanalyzing a Rabbit Near Death. 9.- Crisis and Meaning//APPENDIX: On Theory and Method.

The book is no very engaging, but it is not dry either. In my opinion is a masterful work which can be savoured by the professional historian and by the educated layperson too. Therefore, my rate is between 5 (content) and 3 (pleasure, sometimes falling to 2, sometimes raising to 4).

Other book that I would recommend to read, more or less related to the matter, would be "A Social History of Dying", also by Allan Kellehear; How we die" by S.B. Nuland ,"The loneliness of Dying" by Norbert Elias and chapter 11th of "The Waning of the Middle Ages" by Johan Huizinga.

Additionally, as a complement to " Experiences Near Death: Beyond Medicine and Religion", I would also suggest reading the following works, whose scope is as amazingly global as Kellehear's: 1. Agrarian cultures: "Pre-industrial societies" by Patricia Crone; 2. Economy: "The world economy. A millennial perspective" (2001) plus "The world economy: Historical Statistics" (2003) by Angus Maddison (a combined edition of these two volumes is to appear on December 2007); 3. Government: "The History of Government" by S.E. Finer; 4 Ideas: "Ideas, a History from Fire to Freud", by Peter Watson; 5. Religion: "The Phenomenon of Religion: A Thematic Approach" by Moojan Momen; and 6. War: "War in Human Civilization" by Azar Gat.