How does culture shape the ways in which people die? Basing her arguments on rich qualitative data obtained from seven months of fieldwork and several follow-up visits to Japan, in this ethnographic study of final days, Susan Orpett Long examines the relationship between culture and choice at the end of life in Japan's postindustrial society. “[T]here is no single ‘Japanese way’ to die” (p. 215), the author contends. In a postindustrial society, people are forced to choose—even their own way of dying. In both Japan and the United States, people often prefer a peaceful ending at home surrounded by family (p. 206), though, in reality, they are most likely to die in hospitals in the hands of medical experts. Despite such similarities between the two societies, culture still makes a difference, yet not by stipulating a “Japanese” or “American” way of death. Rather, culture provides “the particular symbols through which...

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