Crossing Frontiers: Gerontology Emerges as a Science

Gerontology did not emerge as a scientific field of inquiry in the United States until the twentieth century. By tracing intellectual networks and analyzing institutional patterns, Crossing Frontiers shows how old age became a "problem" worth investigating and how a multidisciplinary orientation took shape. Gerontology remains a marginal intellectual enterprise, but its very strengths and weaknesses illuminate the politics of specialization and academic turf-fighting in U.S. higher education.