Examines the experience of aging from the standpoint of the individual, rather than merely as a collection of statistics and charts. This title looks at aging, emotion and coping, and stability and change in both environment and personality. It is useful for scholars and also accessible to the lay audience.

This book is an intellectual and personal history of Richard Lazarus, a psychologist whose pioneering research and theories in stress, coping, and emotion continue to have a worldwide influence. The author interweaves the account of his personal life and career with the developments of psychology as an academic discipline during the past five decades. His reminiscences offer glimpses of academic life, university politics, and also his growing contacts with the European and Japanese colleagues who invited him to lecture. The book concludes with his thoughts about aging, retirement, and issues of life and death.