ABSTRACT
This book is concerned with theory and research about ageing, a phenomenon with which we tend to consider ourselves well acquainted, at least from the point of view of an observer, even if we have not experienced its effects at first hand. The danger, however, is that much of what we think we know about ageing is really only hearsay, received opinion that reflects the stereotyped and exaggerated attitudes about decline and fall that are so common in western culture. Because ageing is such a widespread and common phenomenon we need to look at it with fresh eyes, and preferably with a vision widened by experience that is not restricted to our own culture. Even though it can be defined precisely in biological terms, ageing is also from another perspective an entirely social construction. How we perceive age varies from culture to culture and from one historical period to another.
