Age and Dignity: Anti-ageist Theory and Practice by Neil Thompson and Gerry R. Cox draws attention to discriminatory ageing practices and promotes ageing with dignity for older adults across cultures. Despite prevailing ageism in society, the book challenges the idea of associating ageing with deficiency and acknowledges the capabilities and skills of older people developed through their life experiences. The book begins with a succinct introduction to the importance of dignity, followed by two sections, each consisting of five chapters.

Part I, ‘Ageing in context’, comprises five chapters addressing the practice of ageism in society and the need to develop anti-ageing practice for older adults. Chapter 1, ‘Understanding ageism’, foregrounds the significant implication of ageism as not simply a ‘matter of personal prejudice’ (p. 9) but a social practice that needs to be shattered through anti-ageing practice. The authors discuss the PCS (personal, cultural and structural) theoretical framework to offer a multidimensional understanding of the ageing process to discuss how various personal, cultural and structural factors shape ageism. Chapter 2, ‘Dimensions of ageing’, rejects the popular association of ageing as a mere biological process and broadens the perspective by discussing other aspects – psychological, social, political and spiritual – that shape ageing experience. The authors suggest that focusing on these dimensions of ageing can help lay a path to promote dignity for older individuals. Chapter 3, ‘The policy context’, delves into the practical aspect of governments formulating anti-ageist policies, to balance individuals’ rights with these policies. In Chapter 4, ‘The sociology of ageing’, the authors extensively discuss the SPIDER (structures, processes, institutions, discourses, expectations and relations) framework, which is highly influential in the social construction of ageism. Chapter 5, ‘Cultural differences in ageing’, highlights how various cultural practices shape the lives of older adults, especially regarding dignity. The chapter briefly touches on native American culture as well as Eastern culture and the dignified ageing practices they follow.

Part II, ‘Responding to the challenges of ageing’, considers the steps required to alleviate and reduce existing ageism and promote dignity, as discussed at length in the first part. Chapter 6, ‘Assaults on dignity’, lays out a range of challenges – such as internalized oppression, depression, difficulties in communicating, illnesses, abuses and the commodification of ageing – that eventually become assaults on older people’s dignity. Responding to these assaults, Chapter 7, ‘Promoting dignified care’, focuses on developing good practice to promote dignified care for older individuals by giving them the choice to make their own decisions, offering counselling to empower them and engaging with processes of mediation and advocacy for them. The chapter stresses the importance of adopting creative methods to battle ageism, including taking an individualized approach as opposed to homogenizing ageing. Chapter 8, ‘The challenges of dementia’, offers dignified ways to conduct a diagnosis and prognosis of dementia. It lays down principles of good practice, such as positive regard, environmental change, assessment and the family’s role in managing care. Chapter 9, ‘Caring for the carers’, introduces a significant debate on dignified care for formal and informal care-givers. It suggests developing practices that alleviate care-giving pressure, especially from formal care-givers, by offering counselling, family support and empowerment. Finally, Chapter 10, ‘Loss, grief and facing death’, engages extensively with the multiple losses an ageing person experiences throughout the lifecourse. The chapter offers various practices through which an older person can manage grief and come to terms with facing death.

In the last few pages, the book summarizes how ageism persists in our everyday lives through dehumanization, marginalization, dependency, social division, denial of rights and taking older people for granted. It suggests practical guidelines for mitigating these challenges and ensuring anti-ageist practice. One of the distinguishing aspects of the book is the integration of anti-ageist practice conducted by practitioners at various levels, and the exercises at the end of each chapter help readers evaluate and assess their own internalized ageism. The book is lucid and comprehensible, aiming to promote dignity for ageing individuals, although it lacks a thorough theoretical grounding on ageing with dignity. Part I of the book mainly discusses ageism and its social and cultural aspects without theoretical engagement with ageing and dignity. In Part II, Chapter 9 commendably addresses non-Western cultures and their approaches to treating the ageing population with dignity; however, it could be strengthened were it to engage more deeply with the challenges that informal (family) care-givers face in such cultures. The book may be helpful for students and practitioners seeking to understand how existing ageism can be challenged through anti-ageist practices; however, there remains scope for deeper theoretical engagement and empirical research on non-Western ageing cultures to enrich its contributions for advanced researchers.