In preparing this special issue of "Omega: The Journal of Death and Dying" - we choose to consider solidarity in a somewhat larger perspective than the other one usually adopted by a clear majority of social support studies. This perspective gives priority to microscopic, immediate, direct transactions between a focal individual - the one affected by the prospect of soon to come death and two classes of people: those included in the core of that person's personal network and the health car...

The 13th edition of Death, Society, and Human Experience provides a panoramic overview of the ways that we are touched by death and dying, both as individuals and as members of society. A landmark text in the field, the authors draw on contributions from the social and behavioral sciences as well as the humanities, including perspectives offered through history, philosophy, religion, literature, and the arts, to provide thorough coverage and understanding of topics associated with...

In his latest and perhaps most adventuresome book, Robert Kastenbaum offers a fresh view of the quest for perpetual youth. The focus is on the "pretty monster" that Oscar Wilde created a century ago in "The Picture of Dorian Gray". We see Dorian first within the frame of his own times, responding to the pressures of modernization by attempting to escape the natural progression of time. Next we enter Dorian, the Opera, a re-imagining of his quest in the postmodern world of interactive compu...