Het Groot Gedenkboek

The Netherlands of today commemorates very differently than a century ago. The Ritual Landscape of being born, dying, commemorating and memories of loved ones will, when we are gone, once again be very different. People migrate and evaluate in line with major social shifts, from collective to individual and back again. The trusted Dutch cityscapes and green countryside are also rapidly evolving. A multiform editorial team was presented with the communal question: ‘How do we commemorate?’. How do we deal with the phenomenon of death and our dead? How do we grieve? How do we do this in relation to our faith, beliefs or intuition? Do we take the freedom to perform the ritual of grief, say farewell and come to terms with death in our own way? Join in this literal and visual quest through the Ritual Landscape! Join in walking, looking, reading, doubting about the memorials of then, now and later. The wide, open field of vision runs from global forms of burial, cremation and remembrance to the more banal ‘how much does a funeral cost?’ and contemporary concepts with digital messages. The kaleidoscopic approach with numerous topics has been made widely accessible with a detailed table of contents and an extensive index, so that everyone can quickly find whatever interests them. Het Groot Gedenkboek (The Big Book of Remembrance) is a moving, serious set of guidelines and an ongoing reading book of a sensitive topic.