Grave (Object Lessons)

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. Where do we go when die? For most of us the options are few: be buried or be burned. The expectation of a casket beneath a monument in a cemetery on the outskirts of town was created by decades of belief, politics, and business, as was the recent revival of the ancient practice of cremation. Now the cemeteries established in the 19th century are filling up and the harmful emissions from cremation are a concern. Green burial, human composting, and coral reefs of ashes are all emerging as new designs. Yet these solutions often overlook the indigent and unidentified who frequently are interred in mass graves, not unlike the potter’s fields of the colonial era, a fate brought into the public eye during the COVID-19 pandemic. The grave may be a final destination, but it is not the great leveler, and permanency is always a privilege. Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. Grave takes a ground-level view of how burial sites have transformed over time and how they continue to change. As a cemetery tour guide, Allison C. Meier has spent more time walking among tombstones than most. Even for her, the grave has largely been invisible, an out of the way and unobtrusive marker of death. However, graves turn out to be not always so subtle, reverent, or permanent. While the indigent and unidentified have frequently been interred in mass graves, a fate brought into the public eye during the COVID-19 pandemic, the practice today is not unlike burials in the potter's fields of the colonial era. Burial is not the only option, of course, and Meier analyzes the rise of cremation, green burial, and new practices like human composting, investigating what is next for the grave and how existing spaces of death can be returned to community life. Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic. Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Contents Chapter 1: The Grave: Our House of Eternity Chapter 2: Navigating Through Necrogeography Chapter 3: The Living and the Dead Chapter 4: The Privilege of Permanence Chapter 5: An Eternal Room of One’s Own Chapter 6: No Resting Place Chapter 7: To Decay or Not to Decay Chapter 8: New Ideas for the Afterlife Chapter 9: Dead Space Notes Index "Examines the design of the grave and how the ways in which we care for the dead are changing as old systems of burial are seen as expensive and unsustainable while new trends are emerging for people who want a more personal, meaningful final statement"-- Provided by publisher