Josh Slocum and Lisa Carlson are the two most prominent advocates of consumer rights in dealing with the death industry. Here they combine efforts to inform consumers of their rights and propose long-needed reforms. Slocum is executive director of Funeral Consumers Alliance, a national nonprofit with over 90 local affiliates nationwide. Carlson is executive director of Funeral Ethics Organization, which works with the industry to try to improve ethical standards. In addition to nationwide issues, the book covers state-by-state information needed by anybody who wishes to take charge of funeral arrangements for a loved one, with or without the help of a funeral director. More information about the book and related issues can be found at www.finalrights.org .

Human remains occupy an uneasy position in U.S. law. A human cadaver is no longer a person, but neither is it an object to be easily discarded. What, if anything, must be done with human remains? What cannot be done with human remains? What should be done with human remains? Before we can critique the law of human remains, we must first understand what the law is. In "The Law of Human Remains," Tanya Marsh, a nationally recognized expert in the law of human remains and cemetery law, collects, organizes, and states the legal rules and principles regarding the status, treatment, and disposition of human remains in the United States so that attorneys and courts can more easily discover, understand, use, and ultimately critique and reform the law. Part I establishes an analytical framework for the law of human remains and presents an overview of significant doctrines. Part II provides a state-by-state summary of the common and statutory law examined in Part I. This book is designed

Only the scathing wit and searching intelligence of Jessica Mitford could turn an exposé of the American funeral industry into a book that is at once deadly serious and side-splittingly funny. When first published in 1963, this landmark of investigative journalism became a runaway bestseller and resulted in legislation to protect grieving families from the unscrupulous sales practices of those in "the dismal trade." Just before her death in 1996, Mitford thoroughly revised and updated her classic study. The American Way of Death Revisited confronts new trends, including the success of the profession's lobbyists in Washington, inflated cremation costs, the telemarketing of pay-in-advance graves, and the effects of monopolies in a death-care industry now dominated by multinational corporations. With its hard-nosed consumer activism and a satiric vision out of Evelyn Waugh's novel The Loved One, The American Way of Death Revisited will not fail to inform, delight, and disturb. "Brilliant--hilarious. . . . A must-read for anyone planning to throw a funeral in their lifetime."--New York Post "Witty and penetrating--it speaks the truth."--The Washington Post

Cemetery Law: The Common Law of Burying Grounds in the United States is the first treatise on U.S. cemetery law since 1950. This volume analyzes and explains key sources of U.S. cemetery law, including treatises, reports, and decisions by appellate courts. The "traditional" American burial-embalming, encasement in a casket, and use of a vault or grave liner in a single, perpetual grave-is still the prevailing practice in the United States. However, Baby Boomers concerned about the cost and environmental consequences of this model are sparking the first significant changes in American disposition practices since the Civil War. Practices that minimize consumption and cost-including "green" burial and cremation-have exploded in popularity in the past decade. Nearly half of all deaths in the United States now result in cremation, and that method of disposition is anticipated to overtake burial in the next few years. Americans eager to innovate in the disposition of human remains find that the law-still heavily rooted in seventeenth century English, Protestant assumptions, practices, and beliefs-is ill-equipped to adapt. Cemetery law in the United States has changed little in the past 200 years, but changes in our disposition practices are so widespread and significant that it will soon have no choice. It is unimaginable that we will start with a clean slate. Instead, the law will, as it always does in a common law system, slowly evolve from its current form. This book is therefore designed to help begin that process by illuminating the structure and history of the common law of burying grounds in the United States, including the foundational assumptions, beliefs, and doctrines.