DOMINIC W. MASSARO, editor
University of California, Santa Cruz

Aging Invigorated Through Autobiography

A History of Geropsychology in Autobiography
Edited by James E. Birren and Johannes J. F. Schroots. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association, 1999. 362 pp. Paper, $29.95.

Linda Fagan Dubin wrote this book's epilogue, titled "The Global Emergence of Geropsychology," which seems like a good place to begin this review. She points out that geropsychology is still in its infancy and notes the very limited contributions to geropsychology before 1950. It is estimated that centenarians in the United States currently number between 50,000 and 75,000. U.S. Census Bureau projections suggest that of the 80 million baby boomers born between the 1946 and 1964, 3 million will reach age 100 (Perls, Silver, & Lauerman, 2000). Dubin's chapter chronicles the increase in human life expectancy from 22 years in ancient Rome to 49 years in the United States around to about 76 in 1991. No wonder there is an increasing interest in the concerns of older adults. Dubin provides a trend analysis, noting that the first reported dissertation in psychogerontology was submitted in 1915 by Helen Hubbert at Johns Hopkins University, and G. S. Hall wrote Senescence: The Last Half of Life in 1922. Before that time, Paul Ranschburg studied cognitive functions and memory problems of older adults at the Budapest Medical School in Hungary, where he developed an experimental psychology laboratory around 1899. Dubin also notes that Sir Francis Galton's 1884 health exhibit in London included people up to 80 years of age.