Cultural historian Samuel addresses Americans' attitudes toward death and grief, explicating how attitudes have been shifting over the past 90 years and what this may portend for the future. Like many other analysts of this subject, Samuel maintains that Americans have strong aversions to talking openly about death and to approaching their own deaths, being far less able to talk about this subject than they are about sex. He contends that Americans remain unprepared for the 'tsunami of deaths' that will inevitably occur with the rising mortalities of the baby-boomer population. Yet, he presents little of the systematic sociological or anthropological evidence that is needed to support this claim of a coming massive dislocation around death. The author presents much useful factual information about death and dying, especially regarding the need to better integrate death into the fabric of everyday living, where most readers will benefit from a readier acceptance of the inevitable. Yet Samuel's breezy writing and occasional anecdotal presentation style periodically works against the full appreciation of his important subject and viewpoints. Summing Up: Recommended. All levels/libraries.

Choice Reviews

Professional pundit Samuel (The American Dream: A Cultural History) provides an overview of how Americans have struggled with the issue of dying, from the 1920s to the present, when the great wave of Baby Boomers are increasingly confronted with their mortality. In these nine decades, as Samuel informs readers, America has experienced brutal wars and epidemics, as well as major medical advances that extended life spans considerably, allowing people to ignore the deferred but inevitable terminal moment.

Publishers Weekly

Dr. Samuel comprehends our current, eternal difficulty with our common fate, unimaginable for many of us, always inevitable. ... While today’s 'radical life-extension' promoters peddle another version of miracle cures, the majority less able to afford such nostrums must get over any expectation of special treatment, Dr. Samuel concludes. ... No longer avoided by the 'eternally young,' he sketches (yet frustratingly, he leaves all but blank this last storyboard) a dire fate for American society if it continues to deny death’s arrival.

New York Journal of Books

The book is easy, nontechnical reading and would be of interest to psychologists, sociologists, historians, philosophers, medical scientists, and the general reader. Samuel traces Americans’ relationship with death and dying from the 1920s to the present day. ... Death, American Style alerts the reader to an unavoidable tsunami of boomer deaths that, as a society, we need to plan ahead to deal with effectively.

PsycCRITIQUES

Lawrence Samuel’s Death, American Style is a witty, engrossing and indispensable examination of our last remaining—and most potent—taboo.

Jeanne Safer, PhD, author of The Normal One: Life with a Difficult or Damaged Sibling and Cain's Legacy: Liberating Siblings from a Lifetime of Rage, Shame, Secrecy, and Regret.

Samuel's book is a fascinating and surprisingly upbeat ride through an unlikely corner of American popular culture. Carefully researched, the book draws on sources as varied as medical counselors, popular evangelists, morality scolds, and death entrepreneurs, all with guest appearances by Mitford and Kubler-Ross. This is a well-told, sometimes amusing, tour through how recent Americans have hedged their bets against the inevitable. We are no different, and just as confused about the end of life, as were our ancestors.

James W. Green, senior lecturer emeritus of Anthropology, University of Washington Seattle