For undergraduate courses in sociology and psychology which examine ageing adulthood. This book focuses on the dramatic changes to the nature of post-retirement life experienced by people at the end of the twentieth century. It examines age and ageing in terms of the key preoccupations of contemporary sociology - citizenship, the body and the self. The book provides a platform for a new social gerontology that sees ageing as central to our understanding of social change. It examines social, cultural and political changes in Europe and North America to address the need for a text that moves the study of ageing from social policy towards the mainstream of social science. *Each chapter of the book examines a different aspect of ageing as a theme representative of broader social issues concerning self and identity, citizenship and the body. *Discusses and illustrates changing nature of social policy towards older people. *Examines changes in retirement and ageing allowing reader to see changing nature of ageing. *Focuses on the importance of identity in later life allowing the reader to see ageing as resistance. *Looks at the changes in understanding of the biology of ageing to show the impact of society on ageing. *Discusses Alzheimer's disease showing the social construction of Alzheimer's. *Examines the importance of cultural aspects in ageing studies, showing the significance of social theory to ageing. *Draws on European as well as North American data and examples to give a broad range of examples.