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

Laslett, Peter

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0333599403 ISBN 13: 9780333599402

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan, 1996

Synopsis

Today as never before, most people in the developed world at least, can expect to live to old age. How has society reacted to this shift of mortality? Much of the accepted account of ageing is simply the persistence into our own time of past perceptions. Laslett argues that the Third Age - beyond the breadwinning and child-rearing years - is that of greatest personal fulfilment, the apogee of life. Combining social history, sociology and philosophy, this book provokes new thinking on one of the crucial changes in the modern world.

About this title

Review

'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

About the Author

Peter Laslett is Emeritus Reader in Politics and the History of Social Structure at the University of Cambridge, Director of the Ageing Unit at the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure, and Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.

Edition details

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0333599403
• ISBN 13: 9780333599402
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 328