Crossing Frontiers: Gerontology Emerges as a Science, W. Andrew Achenbaum, Cambridge University Press, 1995, 278 pages, £35 cloth, £12.95 paperback.

Connecting Gender And Ageing: A Sociological Approach, Sara Arber and Jay Ginn, (eds), Open University Press, 1995, 212 pages, £13.99 paperback.

Images of Aging: Cultural Representations of Later Life, Mike Featherstone and Andrew Wernick, (eds), Routledge, 1995, 299 pages, £13.99 paperback.

The Gifted Group in Later Maturity, Carole K. Holahan and Robert R. Sears, Stanford University Press, 1995, 363 pages, £35.00 hardback.

Aging in the Past: Demography, Society and Old Age, David 1. Kertzer and Peter Laslett, (eds), University of California Press, 1995, 408 pages, $18.00 paperback.

Jane Pilcher

University of Leicester

The five texts reviewed here collectively illuminate the range and significance of the contributions made by the humanities and social sciences to the multi-disciplinary field of gerontology. As most of the authors note, in setting out their rationale for their texts, the ageing of the population makes later life an issue of increasing significance in a whole host of ways, including morally, politically and economically. The more we can understand about this period of the life course, the better placed we will be to face the challenges that demographic change brings to society, especially in the coming century. For these reasons, the field of gerontology is set to become an increasingly important one.

Crossing Frontiers is a history of the emergence of gerontology as a specialised, multi-disciplinary field of enquiry in the United States of America. The central questions this book asks include: Why did those with expertise on ageing aspire to be ‘scientists’?; How has gerontology’s relationship with other disciplines and professions changed over time?; Has it always aspired to be multi-disciplinary? (p.2). Although not a contrast pursued at length by the author, there are noted parallels between the development of gerontology and the difficulties faced by sociology in gaining recognition as a distinctive, important, and respected academic discipline. In the first part of his book, Achenbaum traces the origins of modern American gerontology from the colonial era through to the early decades of the twentieth century. Through a description and assessment of the contributions of early pioneers such as Metchnikoff (who coined the term gerontology in 1908), Nascner, and G. Stanley Hall, Achenbaum reveals the diverse, individualistic and fragmented roots of modern American gerontology. In the period leading up to the Second World War, these diverse roots led to debates around methodologies, particularly those of the natural sciences verses the humanist or social sciences, which were set to characterise the interdisciplinary field of gerontology in the long term. Achenbaum goes on in later chapters to highlight a number of ‘distinctive intellectual orientations and organisational constellations’ within gerontology that emerged from the 1940s onwards. These case studies are argued to reveal the extent to which those early pioneers with a particular interest in ageing were committed to empirical research, including longitudinal research and how particular academic traditions were utilised in the development of a ‘broader gerontological mission’ (p.89).

In Part Two of Crossing Frontiers, Achenbaum again pursues a case study approach, reporting on four different institutional centres of academic research and writing, in order to trace how researchers from a range of disciplines interacted with one another. As the author notes, these case studies do indeed reveal the persistence of earlier trends, including that ‘balkanised interests and divided loyalties’ create imbalances and uneven growth within inter-disciplinary fields (p.124). In subsequent chapters, Achenbaum notes the importance of the era of ‘Big Science’, when the scale and influence of scientific enterprise increased in the United States after the Second World War and ‘America was awe-struck by the power of science to ensure progress’ (p.189). This milieu meant new opportunities for researchers interested in ageing, as policy makers funded the research and considered the findings of experts on ageing. The conclusions Achenbaum reaches in Crossing Frontiers are that gerontology did not itself become a Big Science, but nevertheless became more scientistic, and that, at the end of the twentieth century, it has emerged as a field of study rather than a scientific speciality (pp.252-253). The inter-disciplinary research partnerships and networks within the field of gerontology are fragile, and there are no distinctive methods or, often, shared understandings of the value of differing methodologies: these are characteristics which have impeded and continue to impede gerontology (p.254). Achenbaum ends his history of gerontology on an optimistic note (p.268), claiming that it is not obsolescent and that, as long as scholars are willing to cross the boundaries of their own disciplines and appreciate the rewards of ‘broadening their fields of vision’, gerontology will continue to open new frontiers of knowledge on ageing. The opening sentence of Crossing Frontiers states its main argument: that gerontology did not emerge as a scientific field of inquiry in the United States until the twentieth century’ (p.1). My initial reaction that this is a fairly unsurprising claim had not altered substantially by the time I had read the last sentence of the book. Meticulously researched (and graced by a beautiful cover), Achenbaum’s book is nonetheless likely to have a rather limited appeal for British sociologists, being primarily of interest to those intrigued by the processes through which discrete fields of academic enquiry develop and come to be more or less firmly established over time.

As Achenbaum himself notes (p.2), gerontology is one thing and old age is another. For those whose interest is in the experiences of people within later life rather than in the history of gerontology, Arber and Ginn’s edited volume Connecting Gender and Ageing will prove very appealing. The volume includes contributions from academics positioned in a number of centres of gerontology, working from the perspective of a range of humanities and social scientific disciplines, including sociology, history, and social policy. Gender issues and the influence of feminist critiques of male dominated fields of academic inquiry barely feature in Achenbaum’s book, but are very much the focus of Connecting Gender And Ageing. The stated aim of the book is to explore linkages between ageing and gender so that the understanding of both are enhanced. The book is, then, an example of academics ‘broadening their fields of vision’ in order to extend further knowledge on ageing, as called for by Achenbaum. The chapters are a well-balanced mixture of theoretical discussions and proposals, and reports of empirical research on older people which together suggest the extent to which later life can offer opportunities for the renegotiation of gendered roles and identities.

Contributions by academics with an interest in later life from a variety of disciplines, including social anthropology, English, and media and communication studies also feature in Images of Aging and make it a stimulating read. Featherstone and Wernick’s volume explores a wide range of cultural images or representations of later life, including photographic images, children’s drawings of grandparents, and advertising and marketing strategies aimed at the fifty-plus consumer. The volume is located by the editors in the recent upsurge of interest in the body, within the social sciences and humanities, which has meant that these disciplines are now beginning to engage with embodiment and its relation to social life and culture (p.2), rather than leaving bodily matters solely to the natural and medical sciences.

Images of Aging is divided into six sections, covering historical and comparative perspectives, gender and identity, the relationship between the generations, consumer culture, the body and technology, and death. Chapters (seventeen in all) within each section are relatively short and this is at times a weakness of the volume. The notes to and bibliography of Stephen Katz’s chapter ‘Imagining the Life-Span’ take up half as many pages (five) as the main body of the chapter itself (ten), for example. Within Images of Aging, there are good examples of academics heeding Achenbaum’s call to extend further our understanding of later life through ‘broadening their fields of vision’. Featherstone’s chapter entitled ‘Post-Bodies, Aging and Virtual Reality’ is an intriguing discussion of the possibilities for those in later life of ‘disembodiment’ and ‘re-embodiment’, achieved through the use of computer technology. The ill or disabled older person whose body may be a prison, or those who, within an ageist society, are dissatisfied with their appearance and for whom their body is a mask, may utilise technologies, such as bulletin boards and virtual reality, which enable ‘out of body’ experiences, and thereby avoid identification as an elderly person.

Given that that is a preponderance of women in later life, discussions of images of older women have a rather low profile within Images of Aging. For example, the section of the volume devoted to ‘Gender and Identity’ contains only two chapters, one (by Woodward) a rather difficult read on psychoanalytic theory and the aging woman. Hearn, in the other gender chapter, rightly points out that elderly people are often referred to in an ungendered way, and that, when gender has been included, this has mainly meant talking about older women. Hearn’s chapter is on the imaging of older men, including in biographical and autobiographical accounts and portrayals by the mass media. His argument is that issues of power, difference, and ageism are important in reaching an understanding of the social category ‘older men’, their experiences and their portrayal (pp.99-100). In focusing on older men, including gay older men, Hearn also furthers our understanding of masculinities more generally.

One unifying theme of Featherstone and Wernick’s volume is the analysis of representations of positive images of later life, particularly characteristic of advertising and marketing aimed at the well-off older person as discussed in chapters by Sawchuck and Chaney. In his own chapter, written with Hepworth, Featherstone argues that gerontology itself is preoccupied with positive ageing, as a strategy for improving the status of older people within an ageist society. Positive images of ageing may, for example, stress that normal physiological ageing need not necessarily mean increased physical or mental incapacity, whilst also elaborating new norms of age-related behaviour, centred around a fit, healthy and active leisure-based lifestyle. One of the stated aims of The Gifted Group in Later Maturity, by Carole Holahan and Robert Sears, is to provide insights into the prospects for ‘successful aging’ through the examination of the experiences of a group of older persons who have been advantaged in their lives through their ‘intellectual giftedness’. Holahan and Sears’ book is the latest report on an American longitudinal study of an intellectually gifted cohort (the Terman Study of the Gifted), which first begin in 1921 when the subjects were aged eleven. This book reports on four surveys conducted between 1972 and 1986 when the thousand subjects were in their early sixties and seventies. The men and women of the sample are highly educated and, the men at least, worked in professional or high level business occupations. On the basis of their findings with regard to occupational history in the context of successful ageing, the authors argue that continuing involvement in paid work, beyond the age of normal retirement, is a key contributing factor to the quality of life in later years. Although the women in the sample had less involvement than the men with paid work throughout their lives, they too pursued ‘meaningful activities’, including voluntary work, in their later life and thereby were ‘aging successfully’ (p.120). Evidence on other measures of successful ageing is also presented and discussed, including social bonds (marital, family and friends), interests and activities, values and goals, health and well-being and life satisfaction. At the end of their book, the authors conclude that their study demonstrates the validity of the assumptions of the new, more positive approach to ageing. Clearly, though, their sample is comprised of exceptional people and this is acknowledged by the authors. The occupational histories of most of the intellectually gifted sample meant that they were enjoying their later years of life in sound financial circumstances and most had also maintained good social resources. As the authors note, ‘Their lives therefore showed the potential for the continuing achievement of meaning in later years, where the necessary supports, both financial and social, are present’ (p.268).

Recent emphases on successful or positive ageing must be located within the context of widely voiced concerns about the ageing of the population. Indeed, all the texts reviewed here are part of the contemporary milieu within which later life has become an important item on academic and political agendas. Although a history text, Kertzer and Laslett’s volume Aging in the Past, is written very much with contemporary ageing trends in mind. Both editors, in their own chapters within the volume, give convincing arguments for the direct relevance of historical perspectives for understanding contemporary experiences of later life, and for preparing social policy responses to the challenges that the continued ageing of the population raises for society in the next century. Three substantive sections within the book cover living arrangements, widowhood, and retirement and mortality, in Europe (including England and Wales, Hungary, and Italy) and the United States, with an emphasis on the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Aging in the Past is a volume of ‘the historical demographic study of ageing’ (it claims to be the first such text) and so quantitative analysis features heavily within most chapters. Kertzer’s chapter concluding the volume is the linch-pin that holds Aging in the Past together. In many ways, it works better as an introduction to the volume than does the lengthy chapter by Laslett which claims to have that function. Kertzer begins his chapter by emphasising the relevance of history to contemporary issues around ageing, noting the extent to which current debates about older people are commonly couched in terms of historical understandings. For example, ‘Is our society moving away from a past in which old people were treated with respect? In which they lived with and were supported by their children? In which they continued to participate in the labour force as long as they saw fit?’ (p.364). Kertzer argues that the contributors to Aging in the Past demonstrate the great diversity of situations which old people experienced during earlier periods of history, both between societies and within societies. As Kertzer himself notes, most of the chapters of the book engage with the issue of the residence of the elderly in past times, namely, did they live with their married children or, once their children had married, did they live on their own? The findings of the chapters on this matter are that co-residence with children was more common in the past than has previously been supposed and, furthermore, that Western societies and non-Western societies do not differ so greatly in this respect (p.366).

A second issue highlighted by Kertzer in his concluding chapter is gender, which many of the chapters in the volume address. We are reminded that the overwhelming predominance of women within later life in Western populations, is a recent phenomenon. However, other demographic differences between the sexes in the past, especially rates of remarriage and age at marriage, combined to heavily influence living arrangements, and resulted in significant differences between older men and older women (pp.374-375). Kertzer’s chapter ends with a discussion of the implications of, the new understandings of old people’s living arrangements and gender differences in the past, for the established typologies of household systems more generally in the past. In so doing, Kertzer substantiates his earlier claim that, the history of old age ‘far from being a peripheral subject’ is a fundamentally important topic which bears centrally on major issues of historical development and social theory, as well as current policy discussions about society’s obligations to its citizens during their later years of life. The same can be said of the field of gerontological enquiry as a whole.

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