Social Organisation of Death

This is a book about the ways and means through which death is socially organized in the city of Belfast. It is the first sociological study of death to take an entire city as subject. The author analyzes the various repsonses which were contingent upon 415 deaths registered in Belfast during 1981 and seeks to trace the numerous social, medical, legal, religious and political responses made to those deaths between the moment at which death was pronounced until the moment of disposal. In effect, Prior relates the sociology of medicine and the body to a sociology of death and dying.