A lively story of death, What to Expect When You鈥檙e Dead explores the fascinating death-related beliefs and practices of a wide range of ancient cultures and traditions鈥擬esopotamian, Egyptian, Hindu, Jewish, Zoroastrian, Etruscan, Greek, Roman, Early Christian, and Islamic. By drawing on the latest scholarship on ancient archaeology, art, literature, and funerary inscriptions, Robert Garland invites readers to put themselves in the sandals of ancient peoples and to imagine their mental state moment by moment as they sought鈥攊n ways that turn out to be remarkably similar to ours鈥攖o assist the dead on their journey to the next world and to understand life鈥檚 greatest mystery.
What to Expect When You鈥檙e Dead chronicles the ways ancient peoples answered questions such as: How to achieve a good death and afterlife? What鈥檚 the best way to dispose of a body? Do the dead face a postmortem judgement鈥攁nd where do they end up? Do the dead have bodies in the afterlife鈥攁nd can they eat, drink, and have sex? And what can the living do to stay on good terms with the nonliving?
Filled with intriguing stories and frequent humor, What to Expect When You鈥檙e Dead will be a morbidly delicious treat for every reader alive.
"Fascinating. . . .As well as an incredible depth of knowledge, one of the highlights of this book is the occasional light, humorous touch that Garland brings to one of life’s most difficult topics. He shows us how past societies dealt with death and the idea of an afterlife in a way that was often full of vibrancy."鈥擩ackson von Uden, All About History聽
"[A] rollicking excursion into death in the ancient world. . . .Enlightening."鈥擟aitlin Mahar, Inside Story
"Robert Garland serves up an entertainingly broad sweep across ancient cultures to compare funerary practices and tease out differences and more often common threads, to get closer to the question of what to expect when you are dead. In a sometimes sobering and often humorous but always respectful, tone, the dead and what was done to them are being reviewed. A wealth of knowledge and information is comprised within the pages as well as brought to life by the voices of many ancient authors."鈥擬arion Uckelmann, Antiquity
"Entertaining, witty, and engaging, this ‘tour of death’ is structured around a series of themes and questions such as ‘where to deposit the remains?’, ‘endocannibalism’, and ‘what if you come back to life as a frog?’. . . .A treasure trove of fascinating information."鈥擜ndy Salisbury, Popular History 快色直播
"Garland adds to his scholarship with this examination of religious beliefs and practices around death. . . . His humorous, detailed, and well-researched analysis of the difficult questions of death and the afterlife is a welcome and thorough addition to the literature on eschatology."鈥�Choice
"Approachable and entertaining. . . .This is an exemplary study of ancient death across different cultures, belief systems, geographical areas, and time; it delivers on ancient evidence, key scholarly sources, and an excellent, readable overview of key questions and topics surrounding ancient death."鈥擜nactoria Clarke, Journal of Classics Teaching
"Robert Garland’s What to Expect When You’re Dead is the book you did not know you needed when contemplating the logistics of your own demise. It is essentially Lonely Planet: Afterlife Edition—an erudite, witty and at times darkly comic travel guide through humanity’s oldest (and least returnable) destination, already fully booked. The result is a learned, irreverent and surprisingly consoling survey of the many ways humanity has imagined what follows the final exhalation. The perfect bedside (or graveside) read for those who like their classics with a touch of gallows humour."鈥擪arolina Sekita, Journal of Religious History
“What to Expect When You’re Dead is a remarkable book, as broad as it is deep. Garland’s urbane, witty style makes his grand synthesis of ancient approaches to death eminently instructive for scholars and compellingly entertaining for the general reader. To say this book is well written is an understatement. I can’t imagine a single person who would not learn from it.”—Jennifer T. Roberts, author of Out of One, Many: Ancient Greek Ways of Thought and Culture
“Vital and vivacious, Garland’s sometimes sobering, sometimes irreverent, but always informative overview takes readers on an awfully big adventure. Bringing to life 100,000 years of human responses to death, this book poses timeless questions about the greatest known unknown of all.”—David Stuttard, author of A History of Ancient Greece in 50 Lives
“Robert Garland is, in the nicest possible way, an expert on death, especially on ancient Greek ways of death. Here he turns that expertise to splendid account, ranging informatively, illuminatingly, and provocatively across death culture in not only Greece but also Etruria, Egypt, Rome—and even our own contemporary world.”—Paul Cartledge, author of Thebes: The Forgotten City of Ancient Greece
