STORIA DELLA MORTE IN OCCIDENTE | IV EDIZ. 1987 | PHILIPPE ARIES

Philippe Ariès’s Storia della morte in Occidente (Italian edition, 1987, IV ed., originally L’Homme devant la mort, 1977) is a landmark study in cultural history. Ariès traces the evolution of Western attitudes toward death, dying, and mourning from the Middle Ages to the modern era. Through literary, artistic, and social sources, he identifies shifts from the acceptance of death as a collective ritual to its increasing privatization and denial in contemporary society. His work combines historical anthropology, sociology, and history of mentalities, offering a broad reflection on how mortality shapes culture. It remains a foundational text for the study of death studies and Western historical consciousness.