Despite calls since the 1970s for more research into the history
of old age, there is still a relative dearth of historical studies
on the elderly, especially in the pre-industrial past. This volume
remedies much of that deficiency with essays exploring the lives of
old men and old women, and the images of old age and aging, in
early modern Europe and America. Collectively, the chapters
demonstrate there was a strong association of advanced age with
authority in the lived experience of older men and women. This book
recognizes poverty and physical limitations were a very real
threat, but challenges the tendency of existing literature on
historical gerontology to associate old age with dependence and
disability. Instead, what emerges from this volume is the success
of older people in the past in imbuing their old age with dignity,
despite the often vicious nature of old age in both popular and
elite literature.
Essays are brought together on old age in early modern England,
France, Germany, Italy, Spain and America, enabling comparisons
that cross geographical boundaries. Historians of old age, the
family, demography, social history and cultural history will value
this volume, as will sociologists and anthropologists interested in
gerontology.
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