No country for old age : America's war on aging from Valley Forge to Silicon Valley / Mischa Honeck.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Honeck, Mischa, 1976- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Youthfulness--United States--History.

Youthfulness.

Rejuvenation--History.

Rejuvenation.

National characteristics, American.

United States--Social conditions.

United States.

Physical Description:

xii, 285 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Other Title:

America's war on aging from Valley Forge to Silicon Valley

Place of Publication:

Chapel Hill : The University of North Carolina Press, [2025]

Summary:

"Since the birth of their nation, Americans have acted on the belief that theirs was a land of youth, a place destined to offer a fresh start to an aging world. No Country for Old Age tells this story from the founding period to our present moment, but not without exposing its darker side: rejuvenation has often bred grand expectations before ending in division and despair. Mischa Honeck reveals how Americans of diverse backgrounds have sought not only to feel and look younger but also to breathe new life into their communities. Whether marching under the banners of science, public health, sexual liberation, physical fitness, nation-building, or world peace, these youth seekers have tended to paint their ventures in utopian colors. However, from the founders to today's Silicon Valley elites, anti-aging ventures have repeatedly magnified social inequalities, often projecting visions of society that were unmistakably classist, racist, misogynist, and ageist. Today we are experiencing rejuvenation's Janus-faced legacy: as transhumanists rhapsodize about cyber-enhancing human bodies, ghastly pandemics, old-age poverty, and shrinking life expectancies are poised to become the new normal for many twenty-first-century Americans"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Prologue: To Begin the World Over Again

Phoenix Rising: New Lives in the New Nation

Young America: From Water Cures to the Wide Awakes

Far Away, Back in Time: The Rise of Imperial Recreation

Beauty from Trees: The Colonial Roots of American Cosmetics

Renewing the Race: Sex, Demography, and Democracy between the Wars

Boy Nations: Rejuvenating Defeated Germany and Japan

Wipe the Slate Clean: The Countercultural Rebellion

Exercising for the New Age: Building Neoliberal Bodies

Transhuman: Rejuvenation's Final Frontier.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781469680965

1469680963

9781469680972

1469680971

OCLC:

1430194020