Resilience, as defined by Fry and Keyes, the respected editors of this timely volume, “encompasses normal and exceptional development in the face of risk and adversity, recovery, plasticity and regenerative capacity and the ability to maintain function in the face of disability or physical disease.” In short, the capacity to hang tough and bounce back when, inevitably, something bad happens.

Resilience is a hot topic. Interest is reflected by the rapidly growing multidisciplinary literature reviewed in this book's chapters, the attention this topic received in 2009 at the Keck Futures Initiative of the National Academy of Sciences, which was entitled “Future of the Human Healthspan” and in the theme of the 2008 annual meeting of the Gerontological Society of America, “Resilience in an Aging Society: Risks and Opportunities.” In addition, interest in the capacity of individuals to respond to adversity is inevitably spiking as the current economic downturn poses major stress and dislocation for many.