This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

The Seventh Age of Man: Issues, Challenges, and Paradoxes is a collection of academic essays on Old Age. The contributors come from a wide range of fields of expertise, which accounts for the originality of the book. Depending on their respective disciplines, the authors resort to various methodological approaches, from sociological case studies to discourse analysis, and from historical and political theories to media criticism, but they often address similar questions – when are people to be considered as old, what does it mean to be old, how do we deal with ageing – and reach similar conclusions about the paradoxical representations of the elderly, whether in Renaissance Europe or in contemporary China. Although men and women are sometimes treated differently, in most societies, the older generation is alternately perceived as a threat and a burden, or as financial and moral support. If they are often criticized or ridiculed, especially when they try to retain their youthful looks long after their prime, the elderly also trigger a feeling of nostalgia as representatives of a past usually seen as more desirable than the present. Their resilience and independence are regularly emphasized, as well as their wisdom, as a result of their long experience, which helps them to contemplate their ends more serenely and which might turn them into models for their contemporaries.

What does it mean to be a man in the twenty-first century? How can today's men lead a more fulfilling existence? Masculinity has reached a moment of crisis. From the erosion of unifying institutions such as marriage to a rise in male suicide rates, the last century and a half has been a particularly turbulent time to be a man. Increasing numbers of men are finding themselves anchorless, uprooted from the conventions and certainties of their forefathers. Today masculinity itself has come under attack, relentlessly maligned in the media. Now, more than ever, the long and perilous journey from infant to old age is fraught with strange complexities, moral dichotomies and maddening contradictions. Incisive and solution-driven, The Seven Ages of Man offers men of all ages, and the women who love them, a clear roadmap to a more meaningful life and a better future for all. Part practical guide and part call to arms, it encourages a return to decency, compassion, humility, understanding and forgiveness., ,

Winning the ultimate battle of survival does not require staying alive… The planet awakes, unleashing a hidden fury. Caught at the epicenter of the first earthquake in centuries, Dabaz Huavossa soon finds it was only the harbinger of a vast misery to follow. And though his utopian world is suddenly disintegrating around him, Dabaz craves more than mere survival. Unwittingly binding himself to an unexpected mentor—the highest leader of his land, a member of the strange race of people called the Immortals— Dabaz is forced to confront life’s deepest questions, while increasingly mistrusting this one who claims to hold the answers. Dabaz fights a growing dread: all life is pointless when trapped in a rush to the grave. His scrabbling for a life worth living pits him against all he holds dear and blinds him to the fact that he is equipping his increasingly savage society for the ultimate battle—the battle with no neutral ground—the battle in which choosing whom to trust is choosing whether to live or die—the battle that determines not just Dabaz’s fate, but the ultimate fate of mankind. A story that defies easy categorization, The Seventh Age deftly combines many subsets of speculative fiction: it is a scientific/metaphysical, utopian/dystopian, mythical/historical, distorted hero’s journey interwoven with philosophical rumination. The reader will be engrossed, will certainly be called upon to think, and will perhaps come away profoundly changed.