This book's subtitle gives more clues about the contents than the title. The two concepts of loneliness and social isolation have been central to social gerontology and public discourse since the setting up of the welfare state, but the ideas and meanings behind the terms have often not been clear. Sometimes described as states of mind, elsewhere as objective measures that capture the general position of older people in society, both have suffered from a lack of conceptual clarity. It is therefore timely that a thorough review of loneliness and social isolation should appear, exploring how the terms have been conceptualised, measured and experienced by past and current generations of older people.

The origin of this book was the ‘Loneliness, Social Isolation and Living Alone in Later Life’ project undertaken between 2000 and 2002 as part of the UK Economic and Social Research Council's ‘Growing Older’ programme. The project's aims, all of which are comprehensively covered in the book, were to describe the prevalence of loneliness and social isolation among older people, to explore trends over previous decades, to examine the relationships between loneliness and social isolation and between being alone and living alone, and to identify the factors that protect older people from experiencing loneliness and isolation. In this book a further objective is added. The authors aim to counterbalance the negative stereotypes and representations of loneliness and social isolation associated with growing older. To do this they focus on the social relationships of older people in all their complexities, but especially with reference to changing family forms and other major social transformations. This added dimension gives rise to the emphasis of the social world of older people that appears in the book's title.

The Introduction presents the rationale for the chapters that follow and sets out the case for a multi-methods approach to understanding contemporary social relations in later life. By focusing on key concepts such as social engagement, capital, networks and support, the authors clearly demonstrate that loneliness and social isolation need to be understood as part of a larger framework of social relations. The aim is partly to redress the limitations of previous studies that have, perhaps unintentionally, contributed towards the commonly-held belief that loneliness or social isolation are inevitably part of ageing and growing old. Through an examination of the theoretical and methodological issues, Chapter 2 details how gerontology has a long tradition of research on loneliness and social isolation. Original research undertaken by the authors is also covered, namely a national survey of 999 individuals aged 65 or more years and follow-up qualitative interviews with 45 people. Chapter 3 brings the focus back to the social world by reporting the results of the survey and in-depth interviews on a number of dimensions, including family life, social contacts, activities and participation in community activities. The results are compared with previous research on these domains, reaching back to Sheldon's 1948 classic study in Wolverhampton. Continuity is the main message from this comparison, with some evidence that current cohorts have richer social lives than their predecessors. At the same time, increased life expectancy is posing new challenges for maintaining social contacts.

Chapter 4 deals thoroughly with the complexities of loneliness, including its measurement and how it is experienced. Despite the relatively robust finding that loneliness seems to affect only a minority of people in later life, the overall results of these studies come across as disappointing and inconclusive. Indeed the authors seem to think so too, since in the conclusion to their chapter they state that (the data do) ‘not provide much in the way of developing our understanding of what older people think causes loneliness and how they understand the concept’ (p. 163). Chapter 5 deals with social exclusion and isolation in the same systematic way, detailing its measurement and prevalence. The authors are rightly keen to demonstrate how results can substantially differ according to the indicators used. Yet, like loneliness, the evidence points again to a minority experience. Perhaps most important is the finding from the qualitative interviews that social isolation is often expressed in terms of detachment from the immediate neighbourhood and locality. There are clear lessons for urban planners in this finding. The final chapter calls for a new approach to the concepts of loneliness and social isolation in later life. The authors forcefully argue that they should not be used interchangeably and should always be part of a larger framework that deals with the multi-dimensional nature of social relationships.

So have the book's aims been achieved? Its strength certainly lies in the detailed examination and critique of the place of loneliness and social isolation in gerontology. Readers who intend to embark on future research in this area will also find the range of methodologies and studies that are presented to be an indispensable source of information when designing their own research. The repositioning of loneliness and social isolation in a framework that covers broader aspects of the social world of individuals is also to be welcomed. The book works less well in demonstrating why (or if) loneliness is a public as well as a private issue and what might be done to alleviate it. In one of the more interesting sections of the book the authors note, with surprise, that very few studies have directly asked interviewees ‘what does loneliness mean to you?’ or ‘why are you lonely?’ In fact, the answers to both these questions are found in the results of their own study: ‘overwhelmingly our participants defined loneliness in terms of an absence of social networks and relationships’ (p. 164). The implication is that social isolation poses the major social policy questions, not loneliness. Could it be that ‘loneliness’, like that other elusive subjective state, ‘happiness’, cannot be harnessed directly to pragmatic public policy initiatives?

Despite the attention to detail, the structure of the chapters is not always coherent. Where one would expect information or discussion to appear, it is sometimes elsewhere. Chapter 1, for example, is titled ‘Loneliness and social isolation’ but deals almost exclusively with the former, and social isolation is the subject of Chapter 4. The research undertaken by the authors is also presented in this chapter, although it would have been more logical to have placed it in the Introduction. We are given details of the questionnaire for the qualitative interviews but not of the quantitative survey. These and other similar disjointed chapters make at times for a jerky read. But it should not detract potential readers who are interested in how gerontology has constructed the categories of loneliness and social isolation and the need to rethink how these concepts can help to improve the conditions under which ageing is experienced in contemporary society.