Based on themes such as status and welfare, Old Age from Antiquity to Post-Modernity examines the role of the elderly in history. This empirical study represents a substantial contribution to both the historical understanding of old age in past societies as well as the discussion of the contribution of post-modernism to historical scholarship.

1 Historical readings of old age and ageing 2 Ageing in antiquity: status and participation 3 Old age in the high and late Middle Ages: image, expectation and status 4 Ageing and well-being in early modern England: pension trends and gender preferences under the English Old Poor Law c. 1650–1800 5 Balancing social and cultural approaches to the history of old age and ageing in Europe: a review and an example from post-Revolutionary France 6 The ageing of the population: relevant question or obsolete notion? 7 Old age and the health care system in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries 8 Old age in the New World: New Zealand’s colonial welfare experiment 9 The family lives of old people 10 Parallel histories of retirement in modern Britain