Juvenescence

Our age is hard to pin down, because people grow older along several tracks at once: the body, the mind, and their place in society. Each of these unfolds inside a culture with a past that came before us and a future that will continue after us. Robert Pogue Harrison contends that, although many features of late modern life make us seem more aged than any generation before, we are also growing younger in our appearance, outlook, and conduct. He calls this the age of juvenescence.

Harrison moves freely across centuries and civilizations to show how images and ideals of youth and old age have shaped one another, from antiquity to the present day. He borrows neoteny, a biological term for animals that keep juvenile traits into adulthood, and applies it to culture. In his account, the restless energy of the young supplies culture with its capacity for invention and sudden brilliance. Yet he also sees youth, which he believes now lasts far longer than it once did, as something that depends on the steadiness and judgment of older people and of the institutions they maintain.

The book is a work of cultural philosophy and intellectual history, written for adult readers interested in how society understands age, generations, and the relationship between innovation and tradition. It follows Harrison's earlier books, which include Forests and The Dominion of the Dead, and reflects his long career as a literary scholar at Stanford.