Customer Reviews

The Longevity Revolution: The Benefits and Challenges of Living a Long Life

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Dr. Butler's book captures the historic and current issues on living and longevity. Each of the 21 chapters is filled with facts and poignant opinions on relevant issues on living longer. An interesting fact that 72% of people over the age of 55 votes regularly and the growth of AARP should impact (but not) in the elections. The comprehensive and concise feature of the longevity revolution is a must read for all, from high school students to those in retirement.

Dr. Bob Butler's Longevity Revolution is truly a masterful piece of work. No individual has done more, here in the US - or throughout the world - to raise awareness of the challenges and opportunities, the fears and hopes of our longer lives. Serving as both physician and philosopher, Dr. Butler brilliantly charts the landcape of an increasingly longer-lived 21st century.

Robert Butler is THE most prestigious and vocal advocate on aging in the world. His contributions to gerontology are without comparison. Now he has written an academic book on longevity that contributes to the subject and informs the reader of studies, status of the subject, and data that has not been available prior to this publication. His unique and professional opinions are invaluable and provide the curious as well as the professional with material that is new as well as important. This is a major contribution to the understanding of longevity in a relatively sparse field.

Barely filled-out bullet-points from what appear to be powerpoint presentations compete with redundant sentences and paragraphs to produce a mine-numbing plea for putting more money into government research on aging and how to prevent it, where possible. The cited material needed updating badly, the long asides could have been moved to end notes or appendices, and the obvious could have been deleted. This might have made a shorter book, but it would have been much easier to comprehend. Focus more, scattershot less would be my recommendation. On the positive side, certain information was interesting, especially for someone moving into their sixth or seventh decades,. Regrettably, those few gems were obscured greatly by the blur of factoids that were also pushed forward.

I was looking forward to reading this book, after glancing at the cover. I expected a thorough review of cutting edge biotechnology advances, and a thoughtful discussion of what society will look like in the coming decades as our society ages.

There was a little of that, but far too little. A lot of the book was eye-glazing dull facts that have little to do with the "longevity revolution"...the author veers into discussions of childhood obesity and the history of urbanization, among many other things.

The worst part about this book, though, was its blatant political tilt. The author embraces European-style socialism. Rarely a page goes by where he is not advocating a larger welfare state, more nanny state programs, more regulation, more government meddling of every kind. One could easily get the impression that the purpose of this book isn't to inform the reader, but rather to persuade the reader to vote for politicians who agree with the author.

Just flip forward to pages 318-320, where the author lists his preferred "political activist agenda for aging and longevity". Every one of these proposals, without exception, would increase the size and power of government. That's what this book is all about. If you want to learn fascinating facts about the promise of biotech, look elsewhere...there are plenty of books that can deliver that, without haranguing you with demands that your freedom be curtailed and your taxes raised.