Good insights for right now, “the first time in…history…in which older populations will outnumber younger ones.”
An intelligent warning to pay more attention to your elders.
“Over the course of this decade,” writes demographic futurist Schurman, “some of the world’s largest and most developed economies, as well as some of its smallest and least advanced, will become incredibly old….In the next two years, those aged 65 and over will be equal to those under 18 in the United States. And by 2050, one in six people worldwide will be over 65, one in four in Europe and North America.” In the coming “Super Age,” people throughout the world will live longer and have fewer children, and seniors will become perhaps a third of the population, “as they nearly are in Japan today.” The author adds that we are headed for disaster if we continue to view the elderly as “a social and economic burden,” obsessively celebrate youth and “anti-aging” advice, and do nothing to ease the way for a long, productive life. Schurman combines ideas for an elderly-friendly future with a denunciation of present conditions. Although a former AARP employee, he deplores its portrait of a typical comfortable retiree. In reality, this is “reserved only for a shrinking proportion of the population…due largely to vanishing corporate pensions, shrinking state pensions, and declining private savings.” Only 16% of Americans have saved more than $200,000 for retirement, which is far too little. Ageism, widely denounced and legislated against, remains widespread, although its core tenets were never true. Older workers have always been more dependable. Even today’s epitome of entrepreneurial brilliance is not the college dropout; the average age of founders of the fastest-growing high-tech startups is 45. The fairly good news is that many nations, including the U.S., are making genuine efforts to adapt their infrastructure and government policies to an aging population—but there is still much to be done.
Good insights for right now, “the first time in…history…in which older populations will outnumber younger ones.”Pub Date: Jan. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-304875-1
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Harper Business
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2021
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.
Words that made a nation.
Isaacson is known for expansive biographies of great thinkers (and Elon Musk), but here he pens a succinct, stimulating commentary on the Founding Fathers’ ode to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” His close reading of the Declaration of Independence’s second sentence, published to mark the 250th anniversary of the document’s adoption, doesn’t downplay its “moral contradiction.” Thomas Jefferson enslaved hundreds of people yet called slavery “a cruel war against human nature” in his first draft of the Declaration. All but 15 of the document’s 56 signers owned enslaved people. While the sentence in question asserted “all men are created equal” and possess “unalienable rights,” the Founders “consciously and intentionally” excluded women, Native Americans, and enslaved people. And yet the sentence is powerful, Isaacson writes, because it names a young nation’s “aspirations.” He mounts a solid defense of what ought to be shared goals, among them economic fairness, “moral compassion,” and a willingness to compromise. “Democracy depends on this,” he writes. Isaacson is excellent when explaining how Enlightenment intellectuals abroad influenced the founders. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Declaration’s “five-person drafting committee,” stayed in David Hume’s home for a month in the early 1770s, “discussing ideas of natural rights” with the Scottish philosopher. Also strong is Isaacson’s discussion of the “edits and tweaks” made to Jefferson’s draft. As recommended by Franklin and others, the changes were substantial, leaving Jefferson “distraught.” Franklin, who emerges as the book’s hero, helped establish municipal services, founded a library, and encouraged religious diversity—the kind of civic-mindedness that we could use more of today, Isaacson reminds us.
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781982181314
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
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