Enduring ideals: revisiting Lifetimes of Commitment twenty-five years later

This article examines political commitment to work for progressive social change as a lifelong activity. Challenging assumptions that idealism is something which is associated with youth, and, appropriately, later to be ‘grown out of’, the article presents an alternative model for examining social activism as a lifelong engagement. Revisiting research published 25 years ago (Lifetimes of commitment: Aging, politics, psychology, Cambridge University Press, 1991), the author re-examines key aspects of the study, including its most central contribution concerning activism as a feature across the life course. The discussion addresses recent debates on old age and political inclination as they are manifested in the global mourning of the death of Nelson Mandela, and the Brexit vote.