The Good Death Through Time

Rebecca Whitehead: Historian Caitlin Mahars The Good Death Through Time joins previous works exploring euthanasiasee, for example, Assisted by Stefanie Greenbut it is unique in its approach to the story. Mahars book is an account of the legal, medical and philosophical attitudes towards euthanasia over time. It is meticulously researched and relies on a close examination of the facts. Whereas Greens book is a subjective account of what it is to be the person who arranges a legal deaththe decisions, the reactions, the grief, the storiesthere is little if any judgement to be found in Mahars exploration, even when looking at the attitudes toward euthanasia and eugenicsa field in which Australian theorists were front and centre in the early parts of last century. Mahar draws attention to the fact that the Northern Territorys Rights of the Terminally Ill Act 1995 was the first legislation in the world allowing doctors to actively assist patients to die, and documents the reaction of some First Nations people to the concept of assisted dying. The book is also topical: recent changes to federal legislation surrounding euthanasia will see debate across the country, making The Good Death Through Time a comprehensive overview of the subject for those interested. Mahars unflinching research and writing is exactly what many nonfiction readers crave; in her book we come face-to-face with ourselves as a species. Rebecca Whitehead is a freelance writer from Melbourne. Books+Publishing is Australia’s number-one source of pre-publication book reviews.

Caitlin Mahar is an historian, educator and writer who lectures in history at Swinburne University of Technology. She completed a PhD in history at the University of Melbourne in 2016 and was awarded the Society for the Social History of Medicine Roy Porter Essay Prize, the Australian and New Zealand Society for the History of Medicine Ben Haneman Memorial Award and the University of Melbourne’s Dennis-Wettenhall Prize. She previously taught literature in the Trinity College Foundation Studies Program at the University of Melbourne and was a regular restaurant reviewer for Fairfax Media Publications.