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The American Resting Place: 400 Years of History Through Our Cemeteries and Burial Grounds | 
 enlarge | Author: Marilyn Yalom
Creator: Reid S. Yalom
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Category: Book
List Price: $30.00
Buy New: $15.00
You Save: $15.00 (50%)
New (32) Used (5) from $15.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  9 reviews
Sales Rank: 11563
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.7
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 7.2 x 1.3
ISBN: 0618624279
Dewey Decimal Number: 929.50973
EAN: 9780618624270
ASIN: 0618624279
Publication Date: May 15, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand New. 100% money back guarantee. All books shipped from Strand Bookstore, New York City, USA.
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Product Description
A sweeping history of America as seen through its gravestones, graveyards, and burial practices, stunningly illustrated with eighty black-and-white photographs
Cemeteries and burial grounds, as illuminated by an acclaimed cultural historian, are unique windows onto our religious, ethnic, and deeply human history as Americans.
The dedicated mother-son team of Marilyn and Reid Yalom visited hundreds of cemeteries to create The American Resting Place, following a coast-to-coast trajectory that mirrors the vast historical pattern of American migration.
Yalom's incisive, often poignant exploration of gravestone inscriptions reveal changing ideas about death and personal identity, and demonstrate how class and gender play out in stone. Rich particulars include the story of one seventeenth-century Bostonian who amassed a thousand pairs of gloves in his funeral-going lifetime, the unique burial rites and funerary symbols found in today's Native American cultures, and a "lost" Czech community brought uncannily to life in Chicago's Bohemian National Columbarium.
From fascinating past to startling future--DVDs embedded in tombstones, "green" burials, and "the new aesthetic of death"--The American Resting Place is the definitive history of the American cemetery.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 4 more reviews...
 the American Restin Place July 11, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Interesting book. My spouse is to read it next and she has a keen interest in cemeteries old and new.
 A Brilliant Literary and Photographic Resting Place June 25, 2008
A great read! "The American Resting Place" is an extraordinary book. Written by Marilyn Yalom, who is best known for her scholarly works on women, and photographed by her son Reid, this book presents American cemeteries over a period of 400 years so as to recreate our cultural history, both textually and visually. Despite its vast scope, the book reads smoothly and managed to hold my attention from beginning to end . I especially liked the chapter on Chicago's cemeteries, with their great religious and ethnic diversity, and the one on New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. The photos are outstanding. No wonder that Newsweek magazine (which called my attention to this book) said "The American Resting Place" was a fascinating way of illuminating our history. Kudos to Dr Yalom and her son Reid, an outstanding photographer.
A book about burial grounds brings the past alive June 24, 2008
Marilyn Yalom wrote an elegant, highly informative book that offers a unique view into the history of our country through burial fields with end of life customs. Her vibrant prose makes the gravestones come to life and leave behind their long-hidden messages. The text reads easily and Reid Yalom's photographs are extraordinary - each projects its own unique artistic view of some aspect of the way we bury the dead. Although the topic is about the dead, the book is vibrant and very much alive. I have rarely learned so much fascinating material from a book that is such a good read.
 Deadly dull June 24, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
Creepy to say, but I have always loved cemeteries. They demand a certain soft-spoken respect and carefull treading about, lest one step on a stone. I must have an undertaker or gravedigger in the bloodline. But I found that "The American Resting Place" took all the ghoulish fun out of death.
I started at the end, at the chapter devoted to bodily disposal practices in the future. The chapter covered green burials, the increasing number of cremations and the focus on making funerals more individual. But while this tack could have led to all sorts of fascinating harbors, it did not. One thread, showing how some Catholic parishes are discouraging lay eulogies, might have kick off a few sparks. But this thread was laid, ever so gently, to rest with the others.
Perhaps it was the disinterested tone of the book that I found off-putting. America's founders had an all-encompassing terror of death and damnation -- those weird tombstone death's heads were intended to frighten the living into a life of rectitude. But Yalom takes a rather distanced view of the whole phenomenon of theology, leeching all the life out of the study of death. If it doesn't matter what happens to our souls after we die, why fuss so much with the remains?
I plowed my way dutifully through the first third of the book and came to a dead stop. Lord knows if my interest will ever be resurrected. For now, "The American Resting Place" itself rests in peace, buried in the pile of books by my bed.
 A Nice Book June 4, 2008
0 out of 10 found this review helpful
Personally I hate beat up, run down old cemeteries and the photos mostly portray that and I don't like them--but I suppose if you like this, then this is a good book for you. Personally I preferred 'The Last Great Necessity' by Sloane. This book I bought used and will probably give it to a friend who collects all books on cemeteries. I'll probably never look at it again.
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