Unnatural Death

In this wide-ranging history of euthanasia and assisted suicide, historian Richard Weikart takes us from the ancient Jews, Greeks, and Romans to the contemporary scene—where the urge to help people kill themselves has intensified, even to the point of pushing the reluctant towards death. How did we reach this place? Unnatural Death answers this question by tracing a complex and fascinating history of ideas, attitudes, and legal wranglings stretching from Socrates to Peter Singer and beyond. Along the way Weikart shows diverse thinkers wrestling with the tension between the unalienable preciousness of human life and the longing to escape suffering and despair. As the author shows, the Judeo-Christian tradition encouraged a culture of life, but the secular Enlightenment and Darwinian materialism have tugged us in a different direction. In the book's final pages, Weikart considers where these currents are pulling us, and what can be done to reverse course.