[A] fascinating story of society endeavoring to find an acceptable modern way to manage the aftermath of death... We now have a comprehensive and strong contextual account of the development of the modern inquest.
Teresa Sutton Legal History Burney presents a convincing and sophisticated argument.
Anne Crowther American Historical Review The book promises to enthrall not only the ... Read moremedical historian and philosopher but also today's doctors contemplating their relationship with the rest of society.
Michael F. Maltese British Medical Journal This is an important book, deserving to be read by historians of politics and of the state as well as of medicine. It should stimulate research, for there is much still to be done on the activities of coroners, the political uses of inquests, and the changing political and jurisprudential role of expertise in the development of the modern state.
Christopher Hamlin Medical History Ian A. Burney's book, Bodies of Evidence, examines how medical experts displaced the public in investigating suspicious deaths in England. Today, the displacement seems inevitable, the result of increased specialization, the rise of professional elites, and modern governments premised on a bureaucracy of experts. Bodies of Evidence, in a rich cultural mosaic, shows that the public ceded its role only reluctantly and uneasily.
Laura B. Gilbert New York Law Journal [A] theoretically sophisticated study.
Elisabeth Cawthon Journal of Interdisciplinary History Burney has avoided a dry, institutional history of the inquest by weaving together abstract concepts of openness, democracy, progress, knowledge, power, the body, ritual, and space with concrete discussions of law, medicine, and politics.
Lori Williamson History: Reviews of New Books [A] theoretically nuanced work offering rich and original insights. Doody's This book provides an engaging and remarkably thorough history of neurology studded with bonbons of fascinating historical insights... Considering the current debates surrounding the provision of home care services and the roles to be played by informal care givers this book is timely and 'a must' for anyone interested in a true reflection on this topic.
Shelly A. Martin Canadian Bulletin of Medical History 2002 As accessible as it is acute, Bodies of Evidence is a model of culturally and politically engaged, intellectually uncompromised historical scholarship.
Roger Cooter Victorian Studies 2003 Carefully researched and comprehensively referenced study.
Linda Bryder History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 2007 Show Less