Abstract
The human brain is designed to look into the future—but with limitations. The only certainty in life is that everyone dies; yet despite this, the brain hides it for fear of maddening its bearer. This truth usually emerges from time to time as a "fear of death"—the dread that the moment will come when there will be neither present nor future. The way it arrives adds uncertainty and horror: will it be sudden and painless? Quick and cruel? This book addresses terrifying, violent, and bloody deaths through historical records to the present day—examining their causes and origins and exploring where the human race stands in its conception of finitude.