This Mortal Coil

De: Andrew Doig

Narrado por: Barnaby Edwards

Dementia, heart failure and cancer are now the leading causes of death in industrialised nations, where life expectancy is mostly above 80. A century ago, life expectancy was about 50 and people died mainly from infectious diseases. In the Middle Ages, death was mostly caused by famine, plague, childbirth and war. In the Palaeolithic period, where our species spent 95% of its time, we frequently died from violence and accidents.

Causes of death have changed irrevocably across time. In the course of a few centuries we have gone from a world where disease or violence were likely to strike anyone at any age, and where famine could be just one bad harvest away, to one where excess food is more of a problem than a lack of it. Why is this? Why don't we die from plague, scurvy or smallpox any more? And why are heart attacks, Alzheimer's and cancer so prevalent today?

This Mortal Coil explains why we died in the past, the reasons we die now and how causes of death are about to profoundly change. University of Manchester Professor Andrew Doig provides an eye-opening, global portrait of death throughout time, looking at particular causes of death - from infectious disease to genetic disease, violence to diet - who they affected, and the people who made it possible to overcome them.

©2022 Andrew Doig (P)2022 W F Howes

Enjoyable tour of our ways of dying - and progressing

I enjoyed this pleasantly told story of the many ways we tend to die, from the accidents and brutality of our environment as hunter-gatherers, to the myriad of communicable diseases of early civilization to today’s lifestyle and age-related fatalities. The anecdotes are well chosen and written. I missed some elaboration on why heart disease and cancer took off in the 20th century, but perhaps we don’t really know everything yet. I liked the audio narration too! Thumbs up.