Buried Alive The Terrifying History of Our Most Primal Fear Book

There are many tales of being buried alive in times gone by that would make your blood run cold! This book tells of these stories and the methods used by different countries to try and prevent any accidental internment of a living soul. From the 1600's right up until the late 19th century people had a morbid fear of being buried alive. The book shows many pictures of the various ingenuous and sometimes downright impractical contraptions that were invented for the purpose. Many different countries built huge mortuary buildings and Germany in particular seems to have had a morbid fascination with such things. Many different methods were used to try and verify that a person was actually dead and some of these were so unpleasant that the person would not have wanted to be alive and suffer the test. Other tests were downright ridiculous and, even though it was a serious book, I found myself laughing whilst reading it.
Many of the blood curdling stories have no verification and seem to have been adapted and uses all of the world to fit in with the local folk lore, little was changed except for names although the stories often got more 'embroidered as they went along'.
The only thing that I found a little tedious was the repetitive nature of the book; the stories were told about someone in, maybe, France and then retold about someone in Germany. This happened many times over and I got a bit bored. Otherwise an interesting book to read. I have been reading a little at a time over quite a long period of time.