A Fresh Map of Life: The Emergence of the Third Age

by Peter Laslett

Overview

The prospect of spending long years in reasonable health and scarcely impaired activity, far beyond the convenient landmark of retirement, has already become the norm—without anybody really noticing it, let alone appreciating the implications. In this highly original and perhaps controversial book, Peter Laslett urges us to plan ahead for personal enrichment—before retirement and before the children leave home—before we reach the Third Age.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674323278
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	04/01/1991
Edition description:	1st Harvard University Press pbk. ed
Pages:	328
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.50(d)

Table of Contents

Preface - A New Division of the Life Course - How Long Can Anyone Go On Living - The Age of Britain as a Country: Britain be Your Age, First Adjuration - The Age of the Present British Population, with a Glimpse into its Future. Britain be Your Age, Second Adjuration - The Rectangular Survival Curve and the Secular Shift in Ageing - The Emergence of the Third Age - Hostile and Demeaning Descriptions of the Elderly - The Insufficiency of the Family Group, in the Past and in the Present - Retirement and its Social History: Kin and Collectivity in Support of the Old - The General Theory of the Third Age - The Obsolescence of the Educational System, and the University of the Third Age - The Burden of the Elderly and Paying for your own Third Age - The Responsibilities of Older British People - Bibliography - Index

Editorial Reviews

'What Laslett has done in A Fresh Map of Life...is to give the first clear, full and authoritative statement about a set of changes that are making the modern world utterly different from what has gone before.' - Peter Willmott, Times Literary Supplement

'Laslett writes with an attractive mix of realism and idealism, and offers more grounds for hope.' - Galen Strawson, Observer

'The reasoning of Peter Laslett's argument in A Fresh Map of Life is that the crown of life should be sought at the time when work is left and children are grown. It is an absorbing and scholarly mingling of social history and philosophy, written in superb prose.' - Barbara Neil, Daily Telegraph

'... are we really happy with the prospect of spending maybe half our adult lives in enforced directionless and low-status idleness? Laslett does not pretend to have more than the glimmerings of an alternative. But he certainly puts a powerful case for the rest of us to start thinking.' - Peter Wilsher, Sunday Times

'Changing demography has made the Third Age a major part of the life cycle for most people. There seems little question in this context that the issues raised by Peter Laslett will require and will receive very serious attention. This is an important book for all of us but especially for those in or approaching the Third Age.' - Peter McDonald, Family Matters, Australian Institute of Family Studies

From the Publisher