Explores the place of adulthood & old age in the human life cycle as well as the crises brought on by physical aging.

Reflections on Dr. Borg's life cycle / Erik H. Erikson -- Medical perspectives on adulthood / Herant A. Katchadourian -- To kill and survive or to die and become : the active life and the contemplative life as ways of being adult / Robert N. Bellah -- Christian adulthood / William J. Bouwsma -- Adulthood in Islam : religious maturity in the Islamic tradition / Ira M. Lapidus -- Confucian perception of adulthood / Tu Wei-Ming -- Promise of adulthood in Japanese spiritualism / Thomas P. Rohlen -- Rajput adulthood : reflections on the Amar Singh diary / Susanne Hoebert Rudolph, Lloyd I. Rudolph -- Adulthood refracted : Russia and Leo Tolstoi / Martin E. Malia -- Searching for adulthood in Americans / Winthrop D. Jordan -- Last stage : historical adulthood and old age / Tamara K. Hareven -- Work and self-respect / Robert Coles -- Writer and the concept of adulthood / Wallace Stegner -- Adulthood in American literature / Kenneth S. Lynn -- On being adult and being an adult in secular law / Joseph Goldstein.