Golden years

PAT THANE commends a richly detailed study of attitudes to older people through history

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Barbara Rosenwein opens her new book with descriptions of the diverse ways her female friends and relatives have experienced old age - some declining into dementia, others enjoying healthy, independent activity until death in their eighties. She was inspired, as a historian of the emotions, to explore feelings about old age - the “winter dreams” of the title - experienced by older people themselves. Here she also examines how others feel about older people, and how such sentiments have been expressed through history.