Never Say Die: The Myth of the New Old Age

Susan Jacoby

Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, Feb 14, 2012 - Social Science - 352 pages

A wake-up call to Americans who have long been deluded by the dangerous twenty-first hucksters of longevity. “If old age isn’t for sissies, neither is Susan Jacoby’s tough-minded and important book ... which demolishes popular myths that we can ‘cure’ the ‘disease’ of aging.”—The Washington Post
 
Combining historical, social, and economic analysis with personal experiences of love and loss, Jacoby reveals the hazards of the magical thinking that prevents us from facing the genuine battles of growing old. Never Say Die speaks to Americans, whatever their age, who draw courage and hope from facing reality instead of embracing platitudes and delusions, and who want to grow old with dignity and purpose. It is a life-affirming and powerful message that has never been more relevant.

Contents

• Never Say Old: 3
• Youth Culture An American Tradition: 28
• Boomer Beginnings and AgeDefying Denial: 56
• Miracles of Modern Medicine and Other Halftruths: 80
• Greedy Geezers and Other Halftruths: 155
• The Wisdom of Old Age: 180
• Endings: 210
• of Facts: 239
• Necessary Bedfellows Bridges Between Generations: 265
• Acknowledgments: 297
• Selected Bibliography: 311

About the author

SUSAN JACOBY is the author of nine books, most recently The Age of American Unreason, Alger Hiss and the Battle for History, and Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism. She writes The Spirited Atheist blog for On Faith, a website sponsored by The Washington Post. She lives in New York City.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Never Say Die: The Myth of the New Old Age
• Author: Susan Jacoby
• Edition: reprint
• Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2012
• ISBN: 0307456285, 9780307456281
• Length: 352 pages
• Subjects: Self-Help / Aging; Social Science / Death & Dying; Social Science / Gerontology