The field of men and masculinities studies has matured significantly during the last 25 years. However, despite the richness and diversity of contributions, there has been relatively little exploration of the experiences and lives of ageing men. This book, written by a leading scholar in the field of men and masculinities studies, uses a critical autobiographical approach to reveal the diversity and complexity of ageing men's lives.

The book draws on data from a small study involving men from different backgrounds from the North-East Midlands in the United Kingdom (UK), including gay, heterosexual and disabled men, to tease out this diversity and complexity. The use of life-history analysis, which pays cognisance to both the broader historical context of men's lives and individual biographies, is used effectively to explore the daily lived, embodied experiences of men. Although the study relies on a relatively small sample of eight men, whose stories are drawn on variously in the chapters, the cases are engaging and serve to challenge some prevailing stereotypes about men and their lives. This includes the idea that ‘men’ constitute a homogenous group with a unitary outlook who necessarily benefit from an overarching, all dominating ‘patriarchy’ or ‘hegemonic masculinity’.

As Jackson argues, second-wave feminism, and gay, lesbian and transgender liberation have been centrally concerned with the workings and implications of dualisms – mind/body, reason/passion, culture/nature, male/female, homosexual/heterosexual, and so on. The ‘young’/‘old’ dualism, however, has been less critiqued. Research and writing on ageing men tends to perpetuate the assumption that ageing is a process of inexorable decline and that people become less socially engaged, sexless and physically challenged as they age. The biomedical discourse that strongly links identity to biophysical being tends to predominate in discussions about ageing as it does in many other areas of life. However, this co-exists with a more recent discourse of ‘positive ageing’ that suggests that one can ‘age well’ and remain optimistic and active, despite biophysical changes. Ageism is an ever-present issue confronting older people. However, while physical decline, changed sexual functioning and/or desire, and social isolation may figure significantly in the lives of some older men, many remain active, healthy and socially involved as they age, and continue to contribute to their families and communities. Further, outlooks and actions often involve a blurring of masculinised and feminised elements. The chapter on ageing men's spousal care-giving is instructive in this regard. The chapter effectively reveals the intertwining of different models of care, showing how men's approach to spousal care-giving may involve the blending of different components including, for example, ‘caring for’ their partners and adopting a more feminised ‘caring about’ approach – depending on their backgrounds and experiences.

The book is generally very well written and mostly succeeds in integrating theoretical, historical and the UK empirical material. Particularly impressive is the way in which the latter was historically contextualised in most of the chapters. The author skilfully employs a critical autobiographical approach throughout, weaving in his own personal accounts of his involvement in men's groups and experiences of ageing and health. This makes for an engaging narrative that is certain to hold readers’ attentions. My main quibble is that the discussion is a bit repetitive in places. A number of the quotes and associated commentary are repeated: Dennis’ story (pp. 82–3, 87) repeats material appearing on pp. 52–3 (one quote ‘I'm alive differently…’ appears three times!); Brian's story reproduces material on pp. 109–10 and 176–7. This repetition may be due to a heavy reliance on a small data-set; however, it should have been picked up during the process of editing.

On the other hand, the broad coverage of issues ensures the book's appeal: ageing men's relationships with their changing bodies; an historical and cultural analysis of ageing men's sexualities in the UK; ageing, masculinity and disability (focusing on Parkinson's disease); spousal care-giving; surviving the process of ageing; and men's embodied and social agency in the context of the free market. These topics have been relatively little explored to date. The conclusion offers a useful summary of the key themes of the book, and emphasises the value of the research method for understanding the experiences and outlooks of ageing men and the challenges posed by this particular research to ‘the negative and restrictive assumptions and stereotypes about ageing men’ (p. 176). The book finishes with a plea for more research to be created and controlled by ageing men themselves, given that most research thus far has been undertaken by the ‘non-aged’.

This book offers a solid contribution to a small but growing literature on ageing men and masculinities, and consequently will appeal to a number of audiences, including researchers and students in ageing studies, gender studies, and specifically men and masculinity studies, the sociology of health and illness, and the health sciences; indeed anyone wishing to learn more about this topic.