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Far from celebrity media spotlight, ordinary individuals, many older and less advantaged, suffer the disabling pain of Parkinson's disease (PD), an illness whose progressive symptoms often mimic old age and cause mobility impairment, communication barriers, and social isolation.

At the heart of With Shaking Hands is the account of elder Americans in rural Iowa who have been diagnosed with PD. With a focus on the impact of chronic illness on an aging population, Samantha Solimeo combines clear and accessible prose with qualitative and quantitative research to demonstrate how PD accelerates, mediates, and obscures patterns of aging. She explores how ideas of what to expect in older age influence and direct interpretations of one's body.

This sensitive and groundbreaking work unites theories of disease with modern conceptions of the body in biological and social terms. PD, like other chronic disorders, presents a special case of embodiment which challenge our thinking about how such diseases should be researched and how they are experienced.

Drawing data from official sources in 60 countries, as well as from the United Nations and the World Bank, this compendium of statistical information on population, fertility, and mortality treats every one of the UN-recognized countries in at least summary form. With data from 1950 onward and projections through 2020, this volume extends the dataset of Nathan Keyfitz and Wilhelm Flieger's landmark work, World Population: An Analysis of Vital Data (1968), with virtually no overlap.

All the life tables, standardized rates, and projections have been generated by uniform methods to ensure easy comparison among countries. More than 800 charts provide a foundation for analyzing the radical demographic changes now taking place: the historic lows of fertility in Germany and other industrial countries, Africa's persistently high fertility, and the worldwide extension of life expectancy. The product of cautious and painstaking labor, this work promises to be an important resource for further demographic research as well as a valuable comparative resource for studies of the status of global social welfare and the environment.