SEASONS OF LIFE: Our Dramatic Journey from Birth to Death

A tie-in to a PBS TV and radio series, this story of human development within each life span, by Kotre (Psychology/Univ. of Michigan) and Hall, a journalist, stands perfectly well on its own. The news here is that as life span increases and health improves in later years, new phases are turning up within each life. These include the individual's 20s, which may involve further training for a career and serve to bridge the gap between high school and settling down to serious work and a family, and the period of relatively healthy old age during which the individual may expect an added bonus of continued good health. Relying heavily on perceptive first-person accounts of each life stage, the authors discuss how the tension and harmony among three kinds of developmental ""clocks""--biological, social, and psychological--cause each life to progress in a unique fashion toward fulfillment and resolution. The information draws heavily on the work of Erikson, Jung, and others. Nevertheless, the portrait of human life depicted here is a powerful one that transcends its sources and offers a new view of the ways in which Western man's evolution sometimes hinders and occasionally enhances his environmental reality. A thoughtful, thought-provoking work, and a credit to the series.