Douglas Keister

I am the lonely one-star reviewer on this book. It's a nicely produced little hardback that could fit into your pocket on the way to a cemetery trip; unfortunately, it has very limited usefulness for actually understanding the significance of the symbols you're seeing on cemetery markers.

The material culture of cemetery markers - at least during the period before markers became almost entirely mass-produced, generic catalog items - is a hugely complex topic. Books upon books have been published just to deal with local symbolism used in one area during one particular time period, not to mention ethnic and racial differences, but Keister claims to be taking on the whole subject of symbolism in all cemetery markers, ever, worldwide.

Some of his facts he gets more or less correct; but there are no endnotes or sources given for the information in this book, and the 'explanations" for some of the symbolism described just seems to have been pulled out of thin air, or possibly based on a quick Google search or some other source not specific to cemeteries. (For instance, many of his explanations of the symbolism of certain flowers seem to have been lifted from some kind of "Language of Flowers" book, bearing no necessary relation to the ways in which flower images might have been used on grave markers specifically.)

There are a lot of pictures and excessive discussion of the more astounding sculptural cemeteries of Europe, like the Cimiterio Monumentale in Milan and Pére-Lachaise in Paris, which certainly make for good photo ops, but aren't really suited to a "field guide" that an American cemetery enthusiast might want to have with them when visiting a typical American cemetery.

I wish I had a better book to recommend for general readers on this topic, but if I find one, I'll update this review.… (meer)