Age is a complex crosscutting notion for at least two reasons the intricate interweaving of its biological and sociocultural meanings and its dual significance as both a benchmark in an individuals life course and a foundation for social structure. This book offers new perspectives on age and ageing by combining achievements in the biological sciences and their different applications and interpretations in demography anthropology psychology and other pertinent disciplines. Thirty contributors from these various fields revisit the measures and the biological models of ageing the borderline between normal and pathological ageing the pertinence of chronological age as a benchmark along the life course its interrelations with psychological development with reproductive phases and other life events the normalizing role ascribed by age classes and the risk of falling into ageism the crosscultural diversity and temporal changes of its meanings the gender divide real and perceived as well as the rights that should be enjoyed at each age.