The Cultural Context Of Aging

The consequences of global aging will influence virtually all areas of life to be encountered in the 21st century, including the biological limits of healthy longevity, the generational contract and nature of family ties, the makeup of households and communities, symbolic representations of midlife and old age and attitudes toward disability and death. The new edition (3rd) of the award winning book The Cultural Context of Aging: World-Wide Perspectives covers all these topics and more. This unique volume uses a qualitative, case study approach to look at the rapidly emerging new cultural spaces and social scripts through which mid and late life are being encountered globally. It is completely revised with over thirty new original works covering China, Japan, Denmark, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Peru, indigenous Amazonia, rural Italy and the ethnic landscape of the U.S.

A new feature of the book includes an integrated set of web book articles listed in the table of contents and available on the book's web site: (www.stpt.usf.edu/jsokolov/webbook). This is in addition to the largest web support of its kind providing literature updates, educational activities and even access to power points, graphics and video supplementing the text.

In this one of a kind edited text, readers will encounter the laughing clubs of India, the centenarian diet plan of Okinawa, the waltzing elders of urban China, aging in a true woman-centered society, the elderscapes of Florida, the challenge of "Conscious Aging," Japan's robotic granny minders, Denmark's "Flexsecurity" long-term care system; the Midwest's elder-friendly communities, "Eldertopia" and the "Green House" model for dementia care. Welcome to your future!

The book contains black-and-white illustrations.

The totally revised second edition of this acclaimed cross-cultural, comparative gerontology text has been expanded to contain 26 chapters, including 14 new articles.

Booknews

Contains a wealth of essays in sections on culture, aging, and context; the cultural construction of intergenerational ties; aging, modernization, and societal transformation; the ethnic dimension in aging; networks and community; and health, aging, and culture. Each section introduction ends with a list of research centers, Internet sites, databases, and print resources. Includes nice b&w photos. This second edition reflects the growing body of research undertaken not only by anthropologists but by scholars in other social and behavioral sciences. This edition also includes eight new chapters, short boxed readings highlighting important issues, and division between references appropriate for undergraduates and those for advanced students and scholars. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

JAY SOKOLOVSKY is Professor and Director of Anthropology at the University of South Florida, St. Petersburg. Sokolovsky specializes in cross-cultural, comparative gerontology and has written several books, as well as more than 30 articles and book chapters, dealing with this subject. In his research he has studied aging in a Mexican peasant village, New York's inner-city, Tampa, Florida, the new town of Columbia, Maryland, and in urban neighborhoods in Croatia and England. He has edited Growing Old in Different Societies and is coauthor of Old Men of the Bowery. Sokolovsky is cofounder and former President of the Association of Anthropology and Gerontology, former President of the Association of Anthropology and Gerontology, and Founder of the International Commission on Aging of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences.