The academic study of aging has flourished in recent decades, along with the growth in the aging population of the U.S. and other advanced nations. However, there are several reasons why a more contemporary edited volume on aging and the life course is invaluable: first, much of the published research in the past was conceived and conducted before the implications of the large "baby boomer" cohorts of the post WWII period could be known. This diverse group, numbering some 80 million, has altered not only the demographic structure of the U.S. (whose older population will soon constitute...

The academic study of aging has flourished in recent decades, along with the growth in the aging population of the U.S. and other advanced nations. However, there are several reasons why a more contemporary edited volume on aging and the life course is invaluable: first, much of the published research in the past was conceived and conducted before the implications of the large "baby boomer" cohorts of the post WWII period could be known. This diverse group, numbering some 80 million, has altered not only the demographic structure of the U.S. (whose older population will soon constitute...