中年危机已成为现代社会的陈词滥调。 自二十世纪中叶以来，该词一直被用来解释中年男人的不忠丶对个人成就的幻灭丶与分居和离婚有关的痛苦和悲伤以及对死亡的恐惧。 本书对社会和文化状况进行了深入研究，研究中的中年男女开始重新评估自己的希望和梦想丶重新评估自己的人际关系，并寻求新的身份认同形式和新的自我满足途径。

本书利用文学丶医学丶媒体和电影等资源以及个人条件，探讨了健康平均馀命的延长丶家庭结构的变化丶工作方式的转变以及个人主义的兴起等因素，如何塑造当代中年男女的危机。

好評

‘In what will surely be recognized as the classic account of how the midlife crisis became the lens through which we perceive and experience middle age, Mark Jackson uncovers the cultural, demographic, economic, and social scientific factors that led us to see midlife as a uniquely problematic life stage. Whether you consider midlife as a point at which discontented women and men compulsively seek to preserve their youthful dreams and vitality or as an opportunity for reinvention and renewal, Broken Dreams will prompt you to view middle age in a fresh light: as a stage that is perhaps life’s most complex and challenging.’ – Steven Mintz, Professor of History at The University of Texas at Austin and author of The Prime of Life: A History of Modern Adulthood 

关於作者

Mark Jackson是英国顶级研究型大学艾希特大学（University of Exeter）慧康（Wellcome Centre）健康文化与环境中心的主任及医学史教授。他着有Allergy: The History of a Modern Malady (Reaktion Books, 2006) 以及 The Age of Stress: Science and the Search for Stability (2013)。