Description
Book SynopsisPeople are living longer, not only in wealthy countries but in developing nations. For too long, Western experts have conceived of aging as a universal predicament one that supposedly provokes the same welfare concerns in every context. It is time, Kavita Sivaramakrishnan writes, to embrace a new approach that prioritizes local agendas and values.
Trade ReviewThis smart, ambitious book tracks ‘global aging’ as an emergent problem and site of expertise over the twentieth century. Sivaramakrishnan attends carefully to entangled debates on aging, race, chronicity, pathophysiology, and care in Africa, South Asia, North America, and Europe.
As the World Ages is not only a signal intervention in the history of public health but in the analysis of decolonization and development. Just as importantly, it offers a long overdue reorientation for social scientific approaches to old age. -- Lawrence Cohen, author of
No Aging in India: Alzheimer’s, The Bad Family, and Other Modern ThingsThe academic discourse on aging has long been dominated by assumptions that privileged the West. Sivaramakrishnan’s groundbreaking and well-researched history brilliantly unpacks these assumptions. It also drives home a fundamental distinction between the narratives of industrialization and globalization: the former promoted a stadial and homogenizing view of world history, the latter connects and yet highlights local differences. A thoughtful and impressive book. -- Dipesh Chakrabarty, author of
Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical DifferenceAs the World Ages is a superb book that brings together intellectual, institutional, and medical history to show how aging emerged as a global problem in the second half of the twentieth century. Ranging widely across sites and archives and scholarly fields, while rooted in a deep understanding of the Indian context, this will be essential reading for scholars across many disciplines, from public health to postcolonial history. -- Sunil Amrith, author of
Crossing the Bay of Bengal: The Furies of Nature and the Fortunes of MigrantsAmbitious and impressive…presents a compelling and nuanced analysis of how aging has become a global problem and a domain of expertise…Sivaramakrishnan offers new, dynamic understandings of how aging has been linked to issues of health, family, labor, and social policy…Essential reading for any anthropologist or social scientist who studies aging…[A] rich and nuanced book. -- Jessica C. Robbins * Medical Anthropology Quarterly *
