There are nearly ten million people in the UK aged 65 years and above, and more than 1.3 million people aged 85 years and above. Furthermore, the number of people aged 60 years or over is projected to rise by more than 50 per cent in the next 25 years (Office of National Statistics, 2009).
Although Fishman takes, as a starting point, various circumstances of America's aging (sic) population, inevitably his topics tap into the universal themes of various rivalries: given that the USA could lay claim to inventing and defining “teenagers” and “generation‐gaps”, this book is a reassessment of the boundaries that forge links across the ages. Certainly the latest estimation – that by the year 2030 one billion people will be 65 or older – is a sobering projection.
Given his journalistic background, the writer also draws on his business experiences, and still manages to make his points in an entertaining manner. This is partly because of the wide‐range of referenced sources: a trawl of the index highlights al Qaeda, Susan Boyle, Dolly (the cloned sheep), the Grateful Dead, the Ringling Brothers Circus and Some Like It Hot (italicised, and with the word “film” in brackets, just in case).
That rather eclectic selection offer (mostly) positive links towards understanding and encouraging complimentary overlaps, encompassing popular cultures as areas of mutual benefit. In one clear example, circus memories are evoked, as “a near‐perfect intergenerational bridge […] there are no camel dung sweepers on the Web, but Grandma saw them and smelled them, or can say she did.” (p. 33)
The era of traditional circuses is now long gone, along with other aspects of such travelling entertainments. The passing of a Ringling Circus icon, Emmanuel Zucchini Senior (“The Human Cannonball”) aged 84, has been duly, dutifully recorded in song – “He died on Monday where he lived/It happens to us all” (Wainwright). Longevity is clearly a major theme in Fishman's book, and his second chapter specifically addresses “A brief history of living much longer”.
The decades are itemised (from the individual's physical and mental perspectives) with a check‐list of things that might be anticipated and expected between “our thirties” and “our nineties”. Such serious issues are going to impinge on us all – in due course – particularly as “at least 750,000 people in Britain have some form of dementia and (that figure is nearly) doubling every 20 years” (Gillies, 2010).
The subject matter has never been more pertinent to the readership of this journal – or to the population of the planet, as governments wrestle with debt‐affected equations linking prosperity and physical well‐being. What could have been an exercise in angst‐riddled hand‐wringing and negative speculation is finally a somewhat optimistic overview of how we can anticipate and plan for our respective futures. Fishman goes some considerable way to preparing readers for the adventures ahead.
