The first part of the book introduces the life course approach, showing how it developed and what it entails. Editors Janet Z. Giele and Glen H. elder Jr. describe how the approach goes beyond mid-life stage theories -- like Levinson's The Season's of a Man's Life or Sheehy's Passages -- by seeing the person's life as shaped not just by internal needs and motives, but also by the structure of the surrounding society and the groups of which the person is a part. Part II considers how to collect and organize longitudinal data and contains practical advice on ways to code and sort life events data, whether to use a retrospective or ongoing method of data collection, how to find a respondent for a follow-up interview, and how to design a regional or national study. Part III analyzes and interprets life course data by examining differences among individuals who share a common trait, such as age, nationality, and birth cohort, among others. In this section, the contributors interpret how individuals review their lives at different ages, analyze objective change between adolescence and adulthood, reflect on the amount and location of innovation in the life course, and conclude with the connections between historical and personal change.