Stephen Asma on Body Worlds and the macabre

Humans have always been fascinated by death and the macabre. Long before Body Worlds brought plastinated human bodies on display around the world, people were jostling to see mummies dug out of dusty crypts, or executed murderers freshly cut down from the gallows. Stephen Asma, whose interest in death, decay, and decrepitude has been marked by books on monsters (On Monsters) and natural history museums (Stuffed Animals and Pickled Heads), writes about our shared predilection to gawp at death. I cannot deny being one of the gawpers myself, either!