BLESSED WITH OLD AGE: Demographic Change and the Family in Japan's Aging Society, edited by John W. Traphagan and John Knight. New York: State University of New York Press, 2003, 248 pp., $71.50 (cloth), $23.95 (paper).

Aging is not what it used to be. Fuwaku, "no longer straying off course" once described the wisdom of old age, 40; and kanreki, one's 60th birthday, was when a lifetime was completed and started all over again, at least for those lucky enough not to be abandoned on the obasuteyama, the "granny dump mountain" of the old folk legend.

As these notions show, the natural process of aging is subject to cultural formations, for, to some extent, human beings, as individuals and groups, are masters of their own destiny.

The Japanese have achieved unprecedented longevity, ranking first in the world in terms of both high life expectancy and low infant mortality. This is an impressive testimony to a successful society. But the longevity came with another, unplanned and unanticipated development: a rapidly and precariously falling fertility rate.