Title: Trends Beyond Life
Description: In the first half of this two part book, the author, Susan Muncey, assesses recent social trends affecting our daily lives. She looks at the many ways in which our lives are being transformed by today’s rapid cultural and technological changes. Our morals, our relationships with each other as well as our attitudes towards family life and reproduction are all subject to upheaval. She also looks at our treatment of the environment and growing international competition for predominance before returning to the theme of our quest for eternal youth and immortality that she sees as a key trend of our times.  In the second half Muncey expands upon the theme of immortality, starting with the way in which death and remembrance have been handled historically and moving on to current developments and thinking. She also recounts experiences of bereavement - in both the developed world (UK) and the developing world (Zambia) where the prevalence of AIDS has led to a huge increase in mortality rates. Ultimately, she focuses on the overwhelming human desire to be immortalised and reaches some interesting conclusions as to how we can all achieve this.