Life, Death and the Elderly

Through an historical exploration from the Middle Ages to the 20th century, this book shows how the position of the elderly is linked to the vital themes of health, disease and survival strategies.

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The experience of ageing and society's response to its elderly has changed throughout history. As debates on policy concerning the medical care and social welfare of the elderly become ever more pressing, many of the assumptions on which they are based are now open to question. "Life, Death and the Elderly" provides a wide-ranging historical exploration of the position of the elderly in society. By including studies on periods from the Middle Ages to the 20th century, the book provides a valuable perspective on the economic, medical, class and gender relations of the elderly, which until now have received relatively little attention from historians. In particular, the position of the elderly is linked to the fundamentally important issues of health, disability and medicalization. The old are shown as not merely dependent but as working to maintain themselves within a variety of systems of social support, whether from the family or the larger community. This book underlines the significant presence of the elderly in past societies and shows how limited is the notion that a loss of status of the elderly was concomitant with increasing industrialization.
This book should be of interest to students, teachers and researchers of the history of medicine, social history, and social policy.