Product Description
Now in paperback, the acclaimed bestseller that reveals the scientific secrets to ensuring that our golden years are truly golden. Based on the longest and most complete study of adult development in the world, AGING WELL draws from the individual histories of 824 men and women from a variety of backgrounds to illustrate the most important factors involved in reaching and enjoying a happy, healthy old age.

Amazon.com Review
"We all need models for how to live from retirement to past 80--with joy," writes George Vaillant, M.D., director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development. This groundbreaking book pulls together data from three separate longevity studies that, beginning in their teens, followed 824 individuals for more than 50 years. The subjects were male Harvard graduates; inner-city, disadvantaged males; and intellectually gifted women. "Here you have these wonderful files, and you seem little interested in how we cope with increasing age ... our adaptability, our zest for life," one of these subjects wrote to Vaillant, a researcher, psychiatrist, and Harvard Medical School professor, about how he was using this information. Vaillant took this advice to heart. In Aging Well, he presents personal narratives about people from these studies whom he interviewed personally in their 70s and 80s. He describes their history, relationships, hardships, philosophies, and sources of joy. We learn their perspectives and what makes them want to get up in the morning. We also learn what makes old age vital and interesting. Vaillant discusses the important adult developmental tasks, such as identity, intimacy, and generativity (giving to the next generation), and provides important clues to a healthy, meaningful, satisfying old age. Health in old age, we learn, is not predicted by low cholesterol or ancestral longevity, but by factors such as a stable marriage, adaptive coping style (the ability to make lemonade out of life's lemons), and regular exercise. Vaillant is empathetic and sometimes surprisingly poetic: "Owning an old brain, you see, is rather like owning an old car.... Careful driving and maintenance are everything." He freely includes subjective observations and interpretations, giving us a richer picture of the people he interviewed and insights into their lives. Aging Well is recommended for readers who are interested in learning about the quality-of-life issues of aging from the people who have the most to teach. --Joan Price

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.0 based on 20 reviews)

Interesting research, troubling lack of objectivity by A. colbert

3 Stars
June 20, 2009
George Vaillant has had the great fortune of spending an entire career delving into human development. His enthusiasm for his work, and his intelligence are powerful accelerants, as his insight and his articulate written expression make for a very readable book. I felt as though he was talking about weighty matters over a pot of tea, rather than the ponderous results of a research project. This sometimes works against the reader's wish for some statistical evidence to back up his sweeping generalities. In an effort to make the book work for an average reader, he has made it hard to find the substance of his objective results. We are forced to take it on faith, for the most part. George Vaillant is a product of Harvard, having been educated and employed there for much of his professional career. His main body of research centers around the longitudinal study of a convenience sample of Harvard students who he follows from young adulthood into their older years.The sample of students was thoroughly biased, in that only the most stable boys, the creme de la creme, were chosen to be studied. Other arms were sewn onto the study to address issues of bias, so that a cohort of "blue collar boys" and a cohort of highly intelligent women were also studied in a similar vein.The interview notes are filled with subjective interpolations and contradictory assessments of the subjects.Though this was acceptable research methodology in the 1940s, it would be considered ridiculous today. What makes it valuable research in the midst of egregious shortcomings is that it has followed the subjects for so long.But the reader needs to understand how serious the research flaws are.Think about Tuskeegee, and you will understand. For example, there were several research subjects who did not disclose their homosexual orientation until many decades of interviews had been collected and collated.This makes it difficult to take the work seriously. The book uses exemplars drawn from all three arms of the study to illustrate his key points, but it is his Harvard Men, those captains of industry and soulful artists that Mr Vaillant seems most enthralled with.His treatment of feminine devlopment is pretty cursory and in the end, his discussion of the women leaves more questions than answers.The females portayed in this book are, ala Nancy Reagan and Pat Nixon,the quiet helpmates of George's Harvard classmates; their husbands are the real heroes of his book. The other female portrayals are cast as otherwise unsuccessful misfits, either in their careers or in their doomed relationships.Ironically, Mr Vaillant has been married a number of times, and had a reputation for being a bit of a roque. He left his second wife with a brood of children and then became married briefly to the younger woman he was involved with, before divorcing her to return to his family. Many years later, when shown the picture of he and his short lived mistress/wife standing side by side, he didn't recognize her and said "Who is that?" After reading Aging Well, I am not really surprised that his female subjects seem two dimensional. Is this the sort of fellow that could ever be appreciated as an authority on the development of women? The findings of this book are neither earth shattering or "surprising", as the cover page promises: Happiness in old age is defined by the strength of our relatedness to others. Mr Vaillant makes a compelling argument that if an individual is willing to extend him/herself in the direction of "other" versus "self", that a measure of happiness is achievable for us all. Happiness just doesn't fall into our laps after a life of hard work and bean counting, rich or poor. Good message. Snoopy used to say "Happiness is a good book." This book, unhappily, falls short, er,...rather it falls too short by being too long. Long on anecdotal musing. Short on objective measures.

Aging well, Harvard Study by Herman Thorbecke (Cornelia, GA USA)

1 Stars
June 14, 2009
I never received this book and am glad you remind me of the fact I ordered it. Please let me know when I may expect it.

Aging Well by R. Condon (Pittsburgh)

5 Stars
January 28, 2009
Nice collection of case studies featuring geriatric counseling and treatment. Considering we are at the leading edge of geriatric science, this book does provide insight into clinical modalities and strategies to use with elderly populations.

Well worth reading, especially for readers in their 30s and 40s by Charles Goldman

5 Stars
June 02, 2008
This is one of my favorite books for two reasons: It summarizes some extremely interesting research, and I have great respect for the author, George Vaillant, M.D., who has a long-term interest in adult development and psychological coping. I do not know him personally, but as a psychiatrist I have been familiar with his work since the 1970s. The research involves almost 1000 men and women who were closely studied intermittently for decades, so that the findings are prospective (as opposed to most long-term research which uses retrospective data). As a result, Dr. Vaillant (along with others) has been able to tease out characteristics which can lead to predictions of outcome (in this case "Happy-Well" vs. "Sad-Sick"). He discovers that much of what affects health and happiness over the long term is under our control. The surprise in this book (and Dr. Vaillant's other work) is that circumstances of birth, including genes, do not completely determine our eventual health. This is good news for those of us who are tired of seeing all of medicine and psychology reduced to biological determinism and a worship of so-called cures that come in a bottle or a procedure. Dr. Vaillant succeeds in this book in striking a balance between using academic concepts and explaining the key findings in very readable and accessible form. The weakness of the book is that the research, being prospective, suffers from a strong cohort effect. That is, the subjects all lived during a similar historical and cultural period in the U.S. and were subject to the same overall economic, political and social forces. That particular pattern of world and local events is unique; no future generations will ever experience the same environment. So, that makes it hard to generalize his conclusions. Even so, I think Dr. Vaillant does a good job of putting them in perspective and honestly appraising their relevance for current and future generations. It is unlikely research like this will be done again because of the incredible cost and the need for a research team to remain intact for decades. Despite the title of the book, I recommend it especially for people in their 30s and 40s who are early enough in the process of aging to really apply some of the lessons. My favorite quote: [Aging well means] "learning to live with neither too much desire and adventure nor too much caution and self-care. ... Rather, successful aging means giving to others joyously whenever one is able, receiving from others gratefully whenever one needs it, and being greedy enough to develop one's own self in between."

Really good read... by R. Corey (Central Maine)

4 Stars
June 13, 2007
I bought this book as a textbook for a college class. It is very informative and the style is good. It's perspective is interesting and it puts a lot of pieces of the aging puzzle together. There are a lot of tips and tasks and things to think about and plan for for aging well and the book is worth it for that. But if you despise long drawn out personal narratives, this one's not for you.

SIMILAR PRODUCTS

	Adaptation to Life by George E. Vaillant (Author) Between 1939 and 1942, one of America's leading universities recruited 268 of its healthiest and most promising undergraduates to participate in a revolutionary new study of the human life cycle. The originators of the program, which came to be known as the Grant Study, felt that medical research was too heavily weighted in the direction of disease, and their intent was to chart the ways in which a group of promising individuals coped with their lives over the course of many years. ...
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