It was more than ten years ago that I first wondered why the many elderly people I saw at demonstrations were excluded from the ‘received wisdom’ of what aging is and should be. Eventually, these vague notions became articulated in more sophisticated academic language. Throughout this time, however, my guiding interest has been the question: does growing up necessarily mean growing out of our ideals? The message of this book can be simply summarized in the one-word answer: No. Psychological development and the commitment to work for social change are not antithetical. Indeed, in the lives of these fifteen people, these two processes have been one and the same.

Western psychology, not surprisingly, tends to reflect the values of Western capitalist ideology. Nowhere is this more true than in its theories of aging; much of the literature describes the later stages of life as a time of disengagement, disillusion, alienation and hopelessness. In Levinson's words, it is a time of ‘preparing for … death … liv[ing] in its shadow, and at its call’ (1978: 38–39). If this is an accurate description of how some people experience the end of their lives, we as a society must ask why this is so.