No Country for Old Age: America's War on Aging from Valley Forge to Silicon Valley (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781469680965)

Since the birth of their nation, Americans have acted on the belief that theirs was a land of youth, a place destined to offer a fresh start to an aging world.&8239;No Country for Old Age&8239;tells this story from the founding period to our present moment, but not without&8239;exposing&8239;its darker side: rejuvenation has often bred grand expectations before ending in division and despair. &8239;

Mischa Honeck reveals how Americans of diverse backgrounds have sought not only to feel and look younger but also to breathe new life into their communities. Whether marching under the banners of science, public health, sexual liberation, physical fitness, nation-building, or world peace, these youth seekers have tended to paint their ventures in utopian colors. However, from the founders to today's Silicon Valley elites, anti-aging&8239;ventures have repeatedly magnified social inequalities, often projecting visions of society that were unmistakably classist, racist, misogynist, and ageist. Today we are experiencing rejuvenation's Janus-faced legacy: as transhumanists rhapsodize about cyber-enhancing human bodies, ghastly pandemics, old-age poverty, and shrinking life expectancies are poised to become the new normal for many twenty-first-century Americans.

Author: Mischa Honeck
ISBN-10: 1469680963
ISBN-13: 9781469680965
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
Language: English
Published: 01/14/2025
Pages: 304
Format: Hardcover