Winter Dreams: A Historical Guide to Old Age

by Barbara H. Rosenwein

Winter Dreams is an evocative history of the ways the old have thought, felt and expressed themselves over two millennia, tracking the experience of ageing through artistic, literary and historical records. While old age is often depicted as ‘sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything’, Barbara H. Rosenwein shows that the elderly have always retained their emotional depth and desires. She explores how these have changed over time, as societies’ views of the elderly and of a ‘good’ old age have changed. And through careful exegesis, she allows the elderly, so often absent from the historical record, to speak to us.
We live in a rapidly ageing society, yet ageism is rampant and death and dying are taboo subjects. Rosenwein’s book is a finely wrought testimony to the value of ageing and the richness of our Winter Dreams.

Genres: Nonfiction

264 pages, Hardcover

Published September 9, 2025

About the author

Prof. Barbara Rosenwein was the Humanitas Visiting Professor in Historiography at the University of Oxford for the year 2014-2015.

Barbara H. Rosenwein (Ph.D. (1974), B.A. (1966), University of Chicago) is a professor at Loyola University Chicago. An internationally renowned historian, she has been a guest professor at the École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris, France; the École Normale Supérieure, Paris, France; the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands, and most recently at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Since 2009, Rosenwein has been an affiliated research scholar at the Centre for the History of the Emotions at Queen Mary University in London. She was a scholar in residence at the American Academy in Rome in 2001-2002 and was elected Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America in 2003.

Reviews

[Christine Sampson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book looks at attitudes to aging from pre Roman times to the present day. It’s a meandering in form and sometimes too inclusive to wit I find it hard really to recall any real headline or interesting snippet. Suffice to say the author got on my wick with this ‘BCE’ etc referencing. It distracts me and feels like a problem that didn’t need solving if you ever went to school. Apparently you can be ‘young old’ or ‘old old’. This seems to not really be about chronological age as you can be ‘ old/old’ at 50. Basically, you do better in old age if 1) you have people around you who love you or basically can put up with you, 2) you have money and find things of interest to do and 3) you can move about a bit without the help of others. No surprises there then.

[Greg Bourne · Rating 3 out of 5]

political views

With so many books these days, authors don’t realize that they are purchased for the basic subject matter, and not as a platform to hear the authors, often very opinionated, political views.

[Cheryl]

I have suggested this for purchase to Metro OKC. It seems like the one reviewer was looking for something different. I think there's an audience for it beyond just me... like my mother, perhaps.