It is true to say that aging is about the body, yet in the study of aging we often lose sight of the lived body. Previous works have tended to concentrate on a gruesome cartography of aging infirmities, or on policy developments. The result of this has been to make gerontology and the study of aging data rich and theory poor. It is remarkable that there is almost a complete absence of study of culture and self-image of the middle aged and old. Images of Aging changes this.

The editors have drawn together a team of international contributors who discuss the images of aging which have come to circulate in the advanced industrial societies of today.

They address themes such as: body and self-image in everyday interaction; experience and identity in old age; advertising and consumer culture images of the elderly; images of aging used by governments in health education campaigns; the diversity of historical representations of the elderly; gender images of aging; images of senility and second childhood; images of health, illness and death.