What if everything you thought you knew about aging was wrong? This bold historical account helps explain how ageism has seeped into our lives, slowly and silently shaping our own misconceptions about aging--and about ourselves. Ageism Unmasked takes a journey through time to reveal how politics, technology, religion, media, and medicine have shaped a modern aging narrative that bears little resemblance to reality. Aging is a process, and it doesn't just happen to old people. We are all aging every moment of our lives. Ageism is reflexively forming opinions about people, and how we interact with them, based on their age. And we all do it, without thinking about it. Ageism is so deeply infused in our thinking, language and actions that it is practically invisible. Even attempts to be anti-ageist fall into perilous traps that perpetuate, rather than discourage, ageism. Ageism Unmasked will help readers let go of our desperate need to stay young, appreciate how we all age, and reset our expectations for getting old.