"Peter and I stared at each other, digesting the shocking news. What was this misguided loose cannon of a prosecutor doing? Would he really take the risk of ruining our lives without any evidence of a crime? The answer was obviously yes.The thought of being arrested! The very idea pierced my heart. My mind raced at hyper speed. I had never committed a single criminal act. I was a wife, a mother, and a hard-working professional in the field of real estate development. After many years of faithful service, my bosses, Peter Durkee and Jack Wood, made me an equity partner in Durkee Development Group, a developer of golf course communities in Naples. Now I was being accused of being a partner in crime, a corrupt individual, an influence peddler, who had sought to bring illegal pressure on government authorities with respect to a golf course development called Colisseum Golf.My life had just spun totally out of control."

Never before in human existence have the aged been so numerous - and for the most part - healthy. In this important new book, two professionals, an anthropologist and a physician, wrestle with the complex subject of aging. Is it inevitable? Is it a burden or gift? What is successful aging? Why are some people better at aging than others? Where is aging located? How does it vary among individuals, within and between groups, cultures, societies, and indeed, over the centuries? Reflecting on these and other questions, the authors comment on the impact age has in their lives and work. Two unique viewpoints are presented. While medicine approaches aging with special attention given to the body, its organs, and its functions over time, anthropology focuses on how the aged live within their cultural settings. As this volume makes clear, the two disciplines have a great deal to teach each other, and in a spirited exchange, the authors show how professional barriers can be surmounted. In a novel approach, each author explores a different aspect of aging in alternating chapters. These chapters are in turn followed by a commentary by the other. Further, the authors interrupt each other within the chapters - to raise questions, contradict, ask for clarification, and explore related ideas - with these interjections emphasizing the dynamic nature of their ideas about age. Finally, a third "voice" - that of a random old man - periodically inserts itself into the text to remind the authors of their necessarily limited understanding of the subject.

Never before in human existence have the aged been so numerous - and for the most part - healthy. In this important new book, two professionals, an anthropologist and a physician, wrestle with the complex subject of aging. Is it inevitable? Is it a burden or gift? What is successful aging? Why are some people better at aging than others? Where is aging located? How does it vary among individuals, within and between groups, cultures, societies, and indeed, over the centuries? Reflecting on these and other questions, the authors comment on the impact age has in their lives and work. Two unique viewpoints are presented. While medicine approaches aging with special attention given to the body, its organs, and its functions over time, anthropology focuses on how the aged live within their cultural settings. As this volume makes clear, the two disciplines have a great deal to teach each other, and in a spirited exchange, the authors show how professional barriers can be surmounted. In a novel approach, each author explores a different aspect of aging in alternating chapters. These chapters are in turn followed by a commentary by the other. Further, the authors interrupt each other within the chapters - to raise questions, contradict, ask for clarification, and explore related ideas - with these interjections emphasizing the dynamic nature of their ideas about age. Finally, a third "voice" - that of a random old man - periodically inserts itself into the text to remind the authors of their necessarily limited understanding of the subject.

Sequestered within the heart of a cosmopolitan city is an exotic world-a place where diamonds, astronomically priced, are bought and sold on the strength of a handshake, and business disputes are resolved according to ancient Jewish principles of arbitration. Yet it is also a modern industry facing the same fundamental global changes affecting all businesses today.In Diamond Stories, Renee Rose Shield leads us into the unexamined realm of wholesale diamond traders in New York. Related to several well-respected traders, she had unprecedented access to a society normally closed to outside inquiry. Here she deftly blends her personal relationship and her anthropological training to provide an insightful exploration of this tradition-bound industry, the new challenges it faces, and the ways both industry and individuals adapt to and endure change.Shield begins with a fascinating history of diamond mining, combining the story of the De Beers cartel, the role of Jews in the trade, and the part diamonds have played both in war and liberation. Throughout, she incorporates commentary by current diamond traders. Succeeding chapters explore the evolving nature of both the global trade and the New York diamond district. Shield takes a close look at the increasingly complex ethnic makeup of the district, illuminates the rarely documented work done by women, chronicles the resilient system of arbitration, and reveals the ways in which many traders work well into their eighties and nineties. Their long lives of work, cushioned by the trade's social environment, offer hints for successful aging in general.

"Peter and I stared at each other, digesting the shocking news. What was this misguided loose cannon of a prosecutor doing? Would he really take the risk of ruining our lives without any evidence of a crime? The answer was obviously yes.The thought of being arrested! The very idea pierced my heart. My mind raced at hyper speed. I had never committed a single criminal act. I was a wife, a mother, and a hard-working professional in the field of real estate development. After many years of faithful service, my bosses, Peter Durkee and Jack Wood, made me an equity partner in Durkee Development Group, a developer of golf course communities in Naples. Now I was being accused of being a partner in crime, a corrupt individual, an influence peddler, who had sought to bring illegal pressure on government authorities with respect to a golf course development called Colisseum Golf.My life had just spun totally out of control."