The End of Death
A Surgeon, a Heart Transplant, and the Fight to Change What It Means to Die
Failed to add items
Sorry, we are unable to add the item because your shopping cart is already at capacity.
Add to basket failed.
Please try again later
Add to Wish List failed.
Please try again later
Remove from Wish List failed.
Please try again later
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
1 credit a month to buy any audiobook in our entire collection.
Unlimited access to our all-you-can-listen catalogue of 15K+ audiobooks and podcasts.
Member-only deals & discounts.
Auto-renews at $16.45/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
The End of Death
Pre-order for $34.23
-
Narrated by:
-
By:
-
Basil Baccouche
In January 1968, a surgical team at Stanford University performed one of the most audacious operations in history: the first successful human heart transplant in the United States. At the center was Norman Shumway, a brilliant but reclusive surgeon whose groundbreaking work would not only save lives but also challenge humanity’s oldest definition of death.
Drawing on almost 200 original interviews, archival research, and vivid storytelling, award-winning medical researcher and doctor Basil Baccouche brings to life the gripping drama of Shumway’s clandestine experiments, the media frenzy surrounding his surgeries, the murder charges that nearly ended his career, and the legislative and legal fight that led to changing the very definition of death. For millennia, cultures across the world agreed: Death began when the heart stopped beating. Shumway’s transplants forced society, law, and medicine to adopt a new concept—brain death. This transformation was not merely medical but existential, sparking fierce debate in courtrooms, legislatures, and churches while revolutionizing care for the dying.
With narrative flair and impeccable research, Baccouche chronicles the long, tortured history of one of the most spectacular medical advancements in human history, giving new life to those with a literal broken heart—and the zealous determination of one man who would become the father of the heart transplant.
Sweeping in scope yet intimate in detail, The End of Death is at once a fascinating biography, an illuminating cultural history, and a medical thriller that ultimately asks the question: When does life truly end?
adbl_web_anon_alc_button_suppression_t1
No reviews yet
In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.