Final Days

Long (anthropology, John Carroll U., Cleveland) spent over a decade investigating the social and cultural nature of end-of-life decisions in Japan, the nation with the world's longest life expectancies and a distinctly postindustrial pattern of causes of death. Her ethnography of the final days of life considers bioethical issues such as the words, metaphors, and narratives ordinary people draw on in thinking about what constitutes "a good death"; who makes decisions about a dying patient; the use of high-tech treatments at the end of life; debates about brain death and organ transplantation; and ways of dealing with dying, from hospices to euthanasia. Annotation 2005 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)