Halloween and Other Festivals of Death and Life

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Book Reviews of Halloween and Other Festivals of Death and Life

Book Review: A fantastic book on fall and harvest folk customs. Wow!!
Summary: 5 Stars

Beyond merely recounting the history of Halloween, this book does a wonderful job of placing our holiday in a global context and discussing what societal need these holidays or myths fulfilled. A fascinating study of our human history, I recommend this book highly to anyone interested in folk history and the "meaning" of holidays.

In a similar vein, I also recommend, Halloween : An American Holiday, an American History by Lesley Pratt Bannatyne for a more detailed look of the holiday as it unfolded in the US.

Summary of Halloween and Other Festivals of Death and Life

Also covered are the sociopolitical meanings of carnival celebrations and attempts to control them, the Tex-Mex tradition of el D?o de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), and community approaches to Halloween in such diverse locales as the Canadian prairie, rural Vermont, and Greenwich Village in New York City. A final section looks at the history of Halloween noisemakers and unusual imagery (including the decoration of graves) in two Southern settings. In several of the essays, the authors examine the ironic, even disturbing, implications of such a popular holiday being based on images of death, evil, and the grotesque.

Halloween and Other Festivals of Death and Life is written with a lively balance of scholarship, anecdotes, and enthusiasm, with ample black-and-white illustrations. Whether you're interested in Halloween as a scholar or simply a celebrant, this is the book you need. --Fiona Webster

Holidays Books

• Nonfiction
• Social Sciences > Customs & Traditions
• Sociology > General
• Reference > General