Overview

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)

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9780824829643

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Reviews

In Final Days Susan Long has given us a superb look into end-of-life decision-making in Japan.... The book is rich in ethnographic detail and very well written.... [It is] a remarkably nuanced and detailed examination of how people in Japan deal with conflicts between desires, for example, to die at home surrounded by family and the reality that most people in postindustrial societies will die in hospitals, surrounded by, as Long notes, medical equipment and staff, with family standing on the sidelines.... Final Days [should be] required reading for anyone interested in medical ethics. But the book also is an outstanding entry into the ethnographic literature on Japan. - Pacific Affairs

In Final Days Susan Long has given us a superb look into end-of-life decision-making in Japan.... The book is rich in ethnographic detail and very well written.... [It is] a remarkably nuanced and detailed examination of how people in Japan deal with conflicts between desires, for example, to die at home surrounded by family and the reality that most people in postindustrial societies will die in hospitals, surrounded by, as Long notes, medical equipment and staff, with family standing on the sidelines.... Final Days [should be] required reading for anyone interested in medical ethics. But the book also is an outstanding entry into the ethnographic literature on Japan."" — Pacific Affairs

Author Information

Susan Orpett Long is professor of anthropology at John Carroll University in Cleveland, Ohio.

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