(Dead) Body of Knowledge 

by June Pulliam 

Quigley, Christine. The Corpse: A History. Jefferson, NC: McFarland Publishing¹. 2005. 358 p.

Christine Quigley’s latest book attempts to do for the corpse what Mary Roach did for the human cadaver in Stiff: The Curious Life of Human Cadavers (2003). However, Quigley’s task is a good deal more daunting, since the topic of the corpse is a great deal more broad that that of the human cadaver. While Roach’s book is confined to dealing with the human dead body as it is used to further medical science (except one part of the book where she discusses the “medicinal” uses of human mummies—and is really reaching for content, in my opinion), Quigley’s book takes on topics as diverse as the representation of corpses in art and photography, the embalming of the corpse, the treatment of organ donors, the use of autopsies, and even occurrences of cannibalism. This breadth of scope is both a strength and a weakness. 

So, the bad news first: her scope is a weakness in that when writing about a topic so broadly, authors often find it is necessary to gloss over nearly everything. Thus, Corpse is not a book where one can go for terribly detailed information on anything. An example of this can be seen in the opening paragraph of the chapter where Quigley discusses the proliferation of corpses through means such as accidents:

Accidents can occur when a man or a woman is using a machine, usually a machine intended to make life more efficient or comfortable. Since the invention of trains, people have been killed in them or in their paths. Automobiles or motorcycles have taken more than their share of victims. Airplanes have taken fewer lives, but more at one time. Even the unsinkable ship sank. Human creations explode, collapse, or catch fire, killing their inventors, operators, or occupants. But people have also been known to explode or burn spontaneously, they have drowned in puddles, and they have accidentally fallen, chocked, smothered or hanged. People have been killed at work in mines or at play by wild animals. Accidental deaths in their many varieties point out the limitations of the human body as well as the limitations of technology to safeguard life and, after an accident, to save it.

Yes, this opening paragraph covers a good deal of ground, but superficially. And the rest of the chapter is neither exhaustive of the subject nor all inclusive, nor could it be unless it too were the length of at least one book. This style is typical of Corpse, so if you are looking for a lot of very specific information about say, something such as embalming, you will not find it here.

However, the breadth of this book is also a great strength. Overviews of this sort are extremely useful to scholars coming to a subject and attempting to get a handle on what they’re writing about. So, for example, if someone were doing research about cremation, Quigley’s book wouldn’t be a bad starting point, and here’s why: the footnotes and huge bibliography at the end. I myself am currently involved in two research projects where I am grateful for works such as this because they lead me to more in depth sources that might be more difficult to simply call up by keyword or via subject searching of databases.

Corpse specifically, and McFarland’s research-based books in general, are particularly useful in this way, providing broad overviews of large subjects, with detailed bibliographies for further readings. For this reason, Corpse would be a particularly useful purchase for any library—or for anyone simply trying to get a handle on dead bodies.

¹McFarland’s website can be found at www.mcfarlandpub.com , and the publisher can be contacted at 1-800-253-2187.