Old Age In English History

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Old Age in English History

Author : Pat Thane
Publisher : OUP Oxford
Page : 548 pages
File Size : 53,6 Mb
Release : 2000-05-11
Category : History
ISBN : 9780191542176

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Old Age in English History by Pat Thane Pdf

At the end of the twentieth century more people are living into their seventies, eighties, nineties and beyond, a process expected to continue well into the next millennium. The twentieth century has achieved what people in other centuries only dreamed of: many can now expect to survive to old age in reasonably good health and can remain active and independent to the end, in contrast to the high death rate, ill health and destitution which affected all ages in the past. Yet this change is generally greeted not with triumph but with alarm. It is assumed that the longer people live, the longer they are ill and dependent, thus burdening a shrinking younger generation with the cost of pensions and health care. It is also widely believed that 'the past' saw few survivors into old age and these could be supported by their families without involving the taxpayer. In this first survey of old age throughout English history, these assumptions are challenged. Vivid pictures are given of the ways in which very large numbers of older people lived often vigorous and independent lives over many centuries. The book argues that old people have always been highly visible in English communities, and concludes that as people live longer due to the benefits of the rise in living standards, far from being 'burdens' they can be valuable contributors to their family and friends.

A History of Old Age

Author : Pat Thane
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
Page : 358 pages
File Size : 49,7 Mb
Release : 2005
Category : Family & Relationships
ISBN : STANFORD:36105114435105

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A History of Old Age by Pat Thane Pdf

Seven contributors examine how the best thinkers and artists of each historical epoch in the West have treated old age. Full of surprising and fascinating facts, this is an uplifting companion for those who, like it or not, are beginning to understand the inevitability of their own aging process.

The Decline of Life

Author : Susannah R. Ottaway
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 322 pages
File Size : 50,7 Mb
Release : 2004-02-02
Category : Family & Relationships
ISBN : 0521815800

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The Decline of Life by Susannah R. Ottaway Pdf

The Decline of Life is an ambitious and absorbing study of old age in eighteenth-century England. Drawing on a wealth of sources - literature, correspondence, poor house and workhouse documents and diaries - Susannah Ottaway considers a wide range of experiences and expectations of age in the period, and demonstrates that the central concern of ageing individuals was to continue to live as independently as possible into their last days. Ageing men and women stayed closely connected to their families and communities, in relationships characterised by mutual support and reciprocal obligations. Despite these aspects of continuity, however, older individuals' ability to maintain their autonomy, and the nature of the support available to them once they did fall into necessity declined significantly in the last decades of the century. As a result, old age was increasingly marginalised. Historical demographers, historical gerontologists, sociologists, social historians and women's historians will find this book essential reading.

Old Age in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance

Author : Albrecht Classen
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter
Page : 585 pages
File Size : 53,8 Mb
Release : 2012-02-14
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9783110925999

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Old Age in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance by Albrecht Classen Pdf

After an extensive introduction that takes stock of the relevant research literature on Old Age in the Middle Ages and the early modern age, the contributors discuss the phenomenon of old age in many different fields of late antique, medieval, and early modern literature, history, and art history. Both Beowulf and the Hildebrandslied, both Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival and Titurel, both the figure of Merlin and the trans-European tradition of Perceval/Peredur/Parzival, then the figure of the vetula in a variety of medieval French, English, and Spanish texts, and of the Old Man in The Stricker's Daniel, both the treatment of old age in Langland's Piers the Plowman and in Jean Gerson's sermons are dealt with. Other aspects involve late-antique epistolary literature, early modern French farce in light of Disability Studies, the social role of old, impotent men in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Netherlandish paintings, and the scientific discourse of old age and health since the 1500s. The discourse of Old Age proves to have been of central importance throughout the ages, so the critical examination of the issues involved sheds intriguing light on the cultural history from late antiquity to the seventeenth century.

Growing Old in the Middle Ages

Author : Shulamith Shahar
Publisher : Psychology Press
Page : 268 pages
File Size : 50,8 Mb
Release : 2004
Category : Aged
ISBN : 0415333601

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Growing Old in the Middle Ages by Shulamith Shahar Pdf

This study draws a comprehensive picture of medieval old age in western Europe, combining primary sources and secondary litrature to produce a broad cultural history.

Power and Poverty

Author : Susannah R. Ottaway,Lynn A. Botelho,Katharine Kittredge
Publisher : Praeger
Page : 318 pages
File Size : 48,9 Mb
Release : 2002-10-30
Category : Social Science
ISBN : STANFORD:36105111796608

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Power and Poverty by Susannah R. Ottaway,Lynn A. Botelho,Katharine Kittredge Pdf

Despite calls since the 1970s for more research into the history of old age, there is still a relative dearth of historical studies on the elderly, especially in the pre-industrial past. This volume remedies much of that deficiency with essays exploring the lives of old men and old women, and the images of old age and aging, in early modern Europe and America. Collectively, the chapters demonstrate there was a strong association of advanced age with authority in the lived experience of older men and women. This book recognizes poverty and physical limitations were a very real threat, but challenges the tendency of existing literature on historical gerontology to associate old age with dependence and disability. Instead, what emerges from this volume is the success of older people in the past in imbuing their old age with dignity, despite the often vicious nature of old age in both popular and elite literature. Essays are brought together on old age in early modern England, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and America, enabling comparisons that cross geographical boundaries. Historians of old age, the family, demography, social history and cultural history will value this volume, as will sociologists and anthropologists interested in gerontology.

Women and Ageing in British Society since 1500

Author : Lynn Botelho,Pat Thane
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 261 pages
File Size : 53,6 Mb
Release : 2014-07-30
Category : History
ISBN : 9781317881155

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Women and Ageing in British Society since 1500 by Lynn Botelho,Pat Thane Pdf

Women have always made up the majority of older people: this examination of the lives of elderly women in Britain in the period 1500 to the present reveals attitudes towards the ageing process. It sheds light on household structures as well as wider issues - including the history of the family, the process of industrialisation, the poor law, and welfare provision - and questions many common beliefs about elderly women, particularly that female old age was a time of poverty and want. An important book for students of history and sociology alike.

Old Age from Antiquity to Post-Modernity

Author : Paul Johnson,Pat Thane
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 255 pages
File Size : 51,8 Mb
Release : 2002-11-01
Category : History
ISBN : 9781134711239

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Old Age from Antiquity to Post-Modernity by Paul Johnson,Pat Thane Pdf

Based on themes such as status and welfare, Old Age from Antiquity to Post-Modernity examines the role of the elderly in history. This empirical study represents a substantial contribution to both the historical understanding of old age in past societies as well as the discussion of the contribution of post-modernism to historical scholarship.

Old Age and Disease in Early Modern Medicine

Author : Daniel Schäfer
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 304 pages
File Size : 50,8 Mb
Release : 2015-10-06
Category : History
ISBN : 9781317324102

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Old Age and Disease in Early Modern Medicine by Daniel Schäfer Pdf

This book takes a thematic look at the historical roots of the debate surrounding old age and disease.

Women Writers and Old Age in Great Britain, 1750-1850

Author : Devoney Looser
Publisher : JHU Press
Page : 253 pages
File Size : 45,8 Mb
Release : 2008-08-01
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9780801887055

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Women Writers and Old Age in Great Britain, 1750-1850 by Devoney Looser Pdf

This groundbreaking study explores the later lives and late-life writings of more than two dozen British women authors active during the long eighteenth century. Drawing on biographical materials, literary texts, and reception histories, Devoney Looser finds that far from fading into moribund old age, female literary greats such as Anna Letitia Barbauld, Frances Burney, Maria Edgeworth, Catharine Macaulay, Hester Lynch Piozzi, and Jane Porter toiled for decades after they achieved acclaim -- despite seemingly concerted attempts by literary gatekeepers to marginalize their later contributions. Though these remarkable women wrote and published well into old age, Looser sees in their late careers the necessity of choosing among several different paths. These included receding into the background as authors of "classics," adapting to grandmotherly standards of behavior, attempting to reshape masculinized conceptions of aged wisdom, or trying to create entirely new categories for older women writers. In assessing how these writers affected and were affected by the culture in which they lived, and in examining their varied reactions to the prospect of aging, Looser constructs careful portraits of each of her Subjects and explains why many turned toward retrospection in their later works. In illuminating the powerful and often poorly recognized legacy of the British women writers who spurred a marketplace revolution in their earlier years only to find unanticipated barriers to acceptance in later life, Looser opens up new scholarly territory in the burgeoning field of feminist age studies.

The Long History of Old Age

Author : Pat Thane
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 320 pages
File Size : 55,6 Mb
Release : 2005
Category : Old age
ISBN : 0500251266

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The Long History of Old Age by Pat Thane Pdf

Here is an absorbing and startlingly original illustrated study of one of the great - and most neglected - themes in all history: the ways in which society has perceived old people throughout the ages. From increased life expectancy and 'grey gap years' to dwindling pensions, the pros and cons of aging is a constant theme, yet much of the debate continues to be based on assumptions and misconceptions about the past. Is it true, for instance, that people were considered 'old' at fifty? How far have our ideas about the average life-span in previous centuries been distorted by infant mortality? Were the old respected and cared for? Did sexuality survive into old age? Here, for the first time, a group of leading historians address these and allied questions, writing vividly about a topic of great contemporary resonance that has for too long been surrounded by taboo. The visual evidence is a vital part of the story, and here the book is equally original. Drawing upon the rich legacy of art through two millennia, with works by a wide range of artists including Whistler, Rembrandt, Rego and Freud, this enthralling human story presents a picture that is sometimes compassionate, sometimes horrifying, but overall unexpectedly reassuring.

Aging in World History

Author : David G. Troyansky
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 168 pages
File Size : 47,7 Mb
Release : 2015-10-05
Category : History
ISBN : 9781317381419

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Aging in World History by David G. Troyansky Pdf

In Aging in World History, David G. Troyansky presents the first global history of aging. At a time when demographic aging has become a source of worldwide concern, and more people are reaching an advanced age than ever before, the history of old age helps us understand how we arrived at the treatment of aging in the modern world. This concise volume expands that history beyond the West to show how attitudes toward aging, the experiences of the aged, and relevant demographic patterns have varied and coalesced over time and across the world. From the ancient world to the present, this book introduces students and general readers to the history of aging on two levels: the experience of individual men and women, and the transformation of populations. With its attention to cultural traditions, medicalization, decades of historical scholarship, and current gerontology, Aging in World History is the perfect starting point for an exploration of this increasingly universal aspect of human experience.

Old Age, Masculinity, and Early Modern Drama

Author : Anthony Ellis
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 200 pages
File Size : 45,7 Mb
Release : 2016-12-05
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781351914024

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Old Age, Masculinity, and Early Modern Drama by Anthony Ellis Pdf

This first book-length study to trace the evolution of the comic old man in Italian and English Renaissance comedy shows how English dramatists adopted and reimagined an Italian model to reflect native concerns about and attitudes toward growing old. Anthony Ellis provides an in-depth study of the comic old man in the erudite comedy of sixteenth-century Florence; the character's parallel development in early modern Venice, including the commedia dell'arte; and, along with a consideration of Anglo-Italian intertextuality, the character's subsequent flourishing on the Elizabethan and Jacobean stage. In outlining the character's development, Ellis identifies and describes the physical and behavioral characteristics of the comic old man and situates these traits within early modern society by considering prevailing medical theories, sexual myths, and intergenerational conflict over political and economic circumstances. The plays examined include Italian dramas by Bernardo Dovizi da Bibbiena, Niccolò Machiavelli, Donato Giannotti, Lorenzino de' Medici, Andrea Calmo, and Flaminio Scala, and English works by William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and Thomas Dekker, along with Middleton, Rowley, and Heywood's The Old Law. Besides providing insight into stage representations of aging, this book illuminates how early modern people conceived of and responded to the experience of growing old and its social, economic, and physical challenges.

Old Age and the English Poor Law, 1500-1700

Author : Lynn A. Botelho
Publisher : Boydell Press
Page : 214 pages
File Size : 41,6 Mb
Release : 2004
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 1843830949

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Old Age and the English Poor Law, 1500-1700 by Lynn A. Botelho Pdf

Based on documents from two Suffolk villages, this study examines the operation of the poor law and the individual effort the elderly poor needed to make to survive.

Experiencing Old Age in Ancient Rome

Author : Karen Cokayne
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 258 pages
File Size : 54,9 Mb
Release : 2013-01-11
Category : History
ISBN : 9781136000065

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Experiencing Old Age in Ancient Rome by Karen Cokayne Pdf

Old age today is a contentious topic. It can be seen as a demographic timebomb or as a resource of wisdom and experience to be valued and exploited. There is frequent debate over how we value the elderly, and whether ageing is an affliction to be treated or a natural process to be embraced. Karen Cokayne explores how ancient Rome dealt with the physical, intellectual and emotional implications of the ageing process, and asks how the Romans themselves experienced and responded to old age. Drawing on a wide range of contemporary material - written sources, inscriptions, and visual evidence - the study brings into focus universal concerns, including geriatric illness, memory loss and senility; the status and role of the old, sexuality and family relationships. The book's unique emphasis on both the individual and society's responses to ageing makes it a valuable contribution to the study of the social history of Rome.