Ricca Edmondson (died June 2021) was educated in Lancaster and Oxford. After research at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, she is now senior lecturer in the National University of Ireland, Galway. Her teaching and research focus on the sociology of wisdom and the life course, ethnographic methods, intercultural understanding, rhetorical argument and the history of political thought.Hans-Joachim von Kondratowitz was educated in Berlin, Saarbrücken and Washington University, before working in Munich and Kassel. He is now a senior researcher at the German Centre of Gerontology in Berlin. His interests include international long-term care arrangements, older people and family migration, welfare state and welfare cultures, cultural definitions of ageing, and community projects on ageing.

• Introduction ~ Ricca Edmondson and Hans-Joachim von Kondratowitz; Part one: Religious belonging and spiritual questioning: a Western European perspective on ageing and religion ~ Peter G. Coleman; Spirituality: a means for achieving integration in personal and community spheres in an ageing Singapore ~ Kalyani K. Mehta; Integrating the sacred in creative ageing ~ Michele Dillon; Atheist convictions, Christian beliefs or 'keeping things open'? Patterns of worldviews among three generations in East German families ~ Monika Wohlrab-Sahr; Beyond dialogue: entering the fourth space in old age ~ Haim Hazan; Part two: The long road to a moralisation of old age ~ Hans-Joachim von Kondratowitz; How to balance generations: solidarity dilemmas in a European perspective ~ Svein Olav Daatland; Pension systems and the challenge of population ageing: what does the public think? ~ Dina Frommert, Dirk Hofäcker, Thorsten Heien and Hans-Jürgen Andreß; The ethos of care and environment and its impact on continuity of life for older people in residential care ~ Adelina Cooney and Kathy Murphy; Engineering substantially prolonged human life-spans: biotechnological enhancement and ethics ~ Peter Derkx; Part three: Wisdom: a humanist approach to valuing older people ~ Ricca Edmondson; Social practices, moral frameworks and religious values in the lives of older people ~ Carmel Gallagher; 'Woo-hoo, what a ride!' Older people, life stories and active ageing ~ Lorna Warren and Amanda Clarke; Does eldership mean anything in the contemporary West? ~ James Nichol; Talk about old age, health and morality ~ Outi Jolanki; Afterword: Exploring positive images of ageing: the production of calenders ~ Eileen Fairhurst and Sue Baines; Afterword: Gateways to humanistic gerontology ~ Ron Manheimer.

"Provides a historical typology of old age attitudes from the eighteenth century to the present." American Studies Quarterly

Ricca Edmondson (died June 2021) was educated in Lancaster and Oxford. After research at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, she is now senior lecturer in the National University of Ireland, Galway. Her teaching and research focus on the sociology of wisdom and the life course, ethnographic methods, intercultural understanding, rhetorical argument and the history of political thought.Hans-Joachim von Kondratowitz was educated in Berlin, Saarbrücken and Washington University, before working in Munich and Kassel. He is now a senior researcher at the German Centre of Gerontology in Berlin. His interests include international long-term care arrangements, older people and family migration, welfare state and welfare cultures, cultural definitions of ageing, and community projects on ageing.

• Introduction ~ Ricca Edmondson and Hans-Joachim von Kondratowitz; Part one: Religious belonging and spiritual questioning: a Western European perspective on ageing and religion ~ Peter G. Coleman; Spirituality: a means for achieving integration in personal and community spheres in an ageing Singapore ~ Kalyani K. Mehta; Integrating the sacred in creative ageing ~ Michele Dillon; Atheist convictions, Christian beliefs or 'keeping things open'? Patterns of worldviews among three generations in East German families ~ Monika Wohlrab-Sahr; Beyond dialogue: entering the fourth space in old age ~ Haim Hazan; Part two: The long road to a moralisation of old age ~ Hans-Joachim von Kondratowitz; How to balance generations: solidarity dilemmas in a European perspective ~ Svein Olav Daatland; Pension systems and the challenge of population ageing: what does the public think? ~ Dina Frommert, Dirk Hofäcker, Thorsten Heien and Hans-Jürgen Andreß; The ethos of care and environment and its impact on continuity of life for older people in residential care ~ Adelina Cooney and Kathy Murphy; Engineering substantially prolonged human life-spans: biotechnological enhancement and ethics ~ Peter Derkx; Part three: Wisdom: a humanist approach to valuing older people ~ Ricca Edmondson; Social practices, moral frameworks and religious values in the lives of older people ~ Carmel Gallagher; 'Woo-hoo, what a ride!' Older people, life stories and active ageing ~ Lorna Warren and Amanda Clarke; Does eldership mean anything in the contemporary West? ~ James Nichol; Talk about old age, health and morality ~ Outi Jolanki; Afterword: Exploring positive images of ageing: the production of calenders ~ Eileen Fairhurst and Sue Baines; Afterword: Gateways to humanistic gerontology ~ Ron Manheimer.

"Provides a historical typology of old age attitudes from the eighteenth century to the present." American Studies Quarterly

Ricca Edmondson (died June 2021) was educated in Lancaster and Oxford. After research at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, she is now senior lecturer in the National University of Ireland, Galway. Her teaching and research focus on the sociology of wisdom and the life course, ethnographic methods, intercultural understanding, rhetorical argument and the history of political thought.Hans-Joachim von Kondratowitz was educated in Berlin, Saarbrücken and Washington University, before working in Munich and Kassel. He is now a senior researcher at the German Centre of Gerontology in Berlin. His interests include international long-term care arrangements, older people and family migration, welfare state and welfare cultures, cultural definitions of ageing, and community projects on ageing.

• Introduction ~ Ricca Edmondson and Hans-Joachim von Kondratowitz; Part one: Religious belonging and spiritual questioning: a Western European perspective on ageing and religion ~ Peter G. Coleman; Spirituality: a means for achieving integration in personal and community spheres in an ageing Singapore ~ Kalyani K. Mehta; Integrating the sacred in creative ageing ~ Michele Dillon; Atheist convictions, Christian beliefs or 'keeping things open'? Patterns of worldviews among three generations in East German families ~ Monika Wohlrab-Sahr; Beyond dialogue: entering the fourth space in old age ~ Haim Hazan; Part two: The long road to a moralisation of old age ~ Hans-Joachim von Kondratowitz; How to balance generations: solidarity dilemmas in a European perspective ~ Svein Olav Daatland; Pension systems and the challenge of population ageing: what does the public think? ~ Dina Frommert, Dirk Hofäcker, Thorsten Heien and Hans-Jürgen Andreß; The ethos of care and environment and its impact on continuity of life for older people in residential care ~ Adelina Cooney and Kathy Murphy; Engineering substantially prolonged human life-spans: biotechnological enhancement and ethics ~ Peter Derkx; Part three: Wisdom: a humanist approach to valuing older people ~ Ricca Edmondson; Social practices, moral frameworks and religious values in the lives of older people ~ Carmel Gallagher; 'Woo-hoo, what a ride!' Older people, life stories and active ageing ~ Lorna Warren and Amanda Clarke; Does eldership mean anything in the contemporary West? ~ James Nichol; Talk about old age, health and morality ~ Outi Jolanki; Afterword: Exploring positive images of ageing: the production of calenders ~ Eileen Fairhurst and Sue Baines; Afterword: Gateways to humanistic gerontology ~ Ron Manheimer.

"Provides a historical typology of old age attitudes from the eighteenth century to the present." American Studies Quarterly