The Collapse and Revival of American Community - Bowling Alone

Coming with no background in Sociology, I picked this book because it was suggested to me. I found it very easily accessible, and a really thought provoking commentary on how society is changing under our feet. It intersperses 'data' on our changing views and habits with a very insightful commentary on how these pieces of the puzzle fit together and shape out lives. Best book I've read in ages.

Oh was this a dry read. Charts, statistics on each page with very small font. The subject has interested me for quite some time so picked
up this used copy. Its a tedious academic read not a flowing page turner. Final synopsis, its generations
passing that allows each subsequent generation to set their "norms" for societal capital. Think of the example shared of
letter writing. In anyone fifty and over pen and paper were the customary ways to communicate at all levels. This same
generation becomes flabbergasted over the Gen-X'ers and Milliennium's lack of personal writing habits. They replaced it
social media, or phone texts since the arrival of the internet. Every generation can think back to the horrors of their parents
generations reactions to their behaviors and choices. This generation lives in the world of technology which is an extension
that can yield vast experiences, but they aren't as the generation before cultivated their bonds and connections to others.
Is this good or bad, probably neither, just different.

There are reviews enough for anybody that wants them. This isn't so much a review as an essay.

In the decades since Bowling Alone was published one of the things that has come to world attention is the declining birth rates of every advanced country. These include Caucasian and Northern Asian populations everywhere.

It takes 2.1 children per woman to sustain a population. We are far from that, the numbers ranging from 1.2 children per adult woman in Korea up around the almost 2 in New Zealand. For whites in the US it is 1.6. Already more white people dying than being born, and the imbalance will be more pronounced as the boomers die off.

The phenomenon that is not measured is cultural transmission. We are doing an even worse job of making our children like ourselves than having them in the first place. This relates closely to social capital, Putnam's theme. Obviously culture and people go together. If people don't reproduce their culture, they're going to fail in reproducing themselves. Look at the situation of the American Indians. As long as they were tribal, each successive generation of Indians was taught by the tribal elders to be a just like Indians before them. That's what perpetuating their civilization meant. In the time that they've been on reservations, their civilization has fallen apart. They may be able to have kids, but they are not reproducing a viable society. They basically could not live without the land that they be given as reservations and without handouts from the government. The same is true of other seemingly self-perpetuating groups, such as the underclass in the cities. It may be true that they numerically reproduce themselves, but it's an artificial, unsustainable reproduction because they don't have the means to be self-supporting without help from the productive members of society, redistributed via the government.

Each generation has to make an investment in forming the rising generation to be like them. We used to do this terms of religious belief, civic belief in the American project, involvement in the parents' occupation such as farming or whatever, apprenticeships and so on. Sons were like fathers.

We have abandoned that. We've given the formation of our children over to civil servants, teachers for the most part. Parents don't spend that much time with their children and are isolated from them. Children have a different culture, one largely formed by television. It is not designed to be self-perpetuating. It is a consumption oriented credo.

We're not socializing our kids to pass on anything except perhaps our bad habits like sitting and watching TV and taking handouts from the government. This cannot last; it is already in the process of failing. The productive members of society are not perpetuating themselves. They're not having children and the children that they have are not as socially aware, as Putnam points out, or as fundamentally educated whatever their degrees, as the preceding generations. All of the Western societies are drawing down their capital of generations past, supporting today's elderly at a level beyond what they can afford, and making minimal investments in the rising generation.

The nominal dollar investment has actually been rising quickly The costs of school and university are astronomical. However that money is not going to the benefit of the students, but to the rent seeking functionaries who manage those institutions. In any case we are not forming a rising generation with the same values or the same abilities as prior generations. These kids, saddled with debt, with worse job prospects and no commitment to family and kids, are simply not reproducing themselves.

This sounds like doom and gloom. It does represent a sea change in Western civilization, but not necessarily a bad one. Where does it lead?

First it leads to an eventual decline in populations. The earth cannot support the 7 billion people that we have now. The people most inclined to consume are the people who are dying out. Well and good.

The societies where sons somewhat resemble fathers are mostly less rich in money but, one would judge higher in social capital. I would point to homogeneous societies in Latin America such as Costa Rica and Chile and to societies in Eastern Europe. They have a minimal concept of welfare, because the government can't afford it. The societies are not diverse because they don't have enough wealth to attract immigrants. Tradition religion, or some combination of belief in their ethnic traditions and religion seems to be holding its own. Some of these societies are reproducing themselves; in others the birth rate is at least rising again.

I think that we will see a sea change as the pendulum swings back from an excessive liberalism to favor the societies that have not been as affected by the progressive project, places where self-reliance and tradition have remained strong.

There are traditional pockets within American society where culture and population are sustaining themselves. They include the Mormons, the Amish, and the Hassidic Jews. They are notable for having retained their social capital, at a community level at least, and a belief that their culture is worth passing on to subsequent generations. When we bury today's progressives, who variously believe that having children is akin to setting vermin loose on a helpless Gaia or simply that kids are too much bother, these will be the ones left. Putnam won't be alive to witness it, but his thesis will be vindicated.

I add a couple of weeks later, this review having received a rather cool reception. Writing reviews is not a popularity contest. I intended this to inspire controversy. As you call it "unhelpful," please consider why and post a comment. I will readily admit that my conclusions are distasteful. The challenge is to convince me I am wrong.

... Reading this book was like walking through a mud bog, but it's a good summary of lots of data that put together is very interesting. My favorite correlation drawn: People who's primary form of entertainment is watching TV are three times more likely to give a fellow driver the finger.

While the author does present some interesting trends regarding an unfortunate loss of membership in various civic and neighborhood clubs and organizations he misses the point in some ways. He states "in a world irrevocably changed, in a world in which most women are employed...how can we nevertheless replenish our stocks of social capital"? The good old days are gone forever when mom stayed home slaving away raising children, doing the laundry, cooking, housekeeping etc. and could go out one night a week to play bridge. Yes women are now employed but still "get to" raise children, do laundry, cook and clean too. Women are doing the lion's share of work in this country. So a suggestion might be to encourage men to get up off the couch and pull their fare share around the house. That way both men and women would have time for some of the activities the author laments we no longer enjoy. And who knows, it might lower the divorce rate.

The American sense of community has disintegrated... wow... tell me something we don't all already know. What's the cause? I don't know for sure, but look... charts! More charts! Have some analogies! Does it make sense now? No? Well... we just need more social capital programs and incentives. Isn't that an insightful and refreshing solution?

Meanwhile...

"Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity."

- WB Yeats

Bowling Alone is a laborious tome written by Robert Putnam about America's social capital. There are a lot of statements to back his theses as to why Americans are, metaphorically speaking, bowling alone, which I absolutely agree with. It's just that I wasn't consciously aware of the reasons why but subconsciously thinking they might be the reasons why. Robert Putnam makes everything crystally clear to me, and I applaud him for that.

I see it everywhere as a village resident, as a college student, as a voter, as a schoolteacher, as a television viewer, as an Internet user, as a newspaper reader, etc.: the decline of participation and support among the populace. Recently, I remarked during the 4th of July weekend that there used to be a lot of parties in my neighborhood during the 90's and now there is none. I've been thinking for a long time about what has happened because the adults used to get involved after they got home from work and the kids used to play a lot on the streets.

I knew the answers before I read Section III which is "Why?" People are too busy with work. They come home exhausted from work. And they need a break from other people. Everybody has an invisible container within themselves that is filled with energy. The more energy is used up, the more tired the person is. Eventually, by the time the container is used up, he is really going above and beyond his limits to get things done; hence, he is simply overworked. That's why they go home, lie down, turn the TV on or surf the Internet, and tune out to recover himself physically, mentally, and emotionally before they do it all over again the next day.

As for joining clubs and organizations, it's not as simple as Putnam thinks. A lot of times, when people do, they are made to feel like outsiders. When the feeling sinks in after a bit while, they drop out and never try again in the future. It happens a lot, especially in schools, workplaces, and churches. That's why people complain a lot about "cliques" and "politics" that cause them to quit or stop coming back. Many of them are rife with corruption and misappropriation of funds. Ditto for the so-called charities.

As often as Putnam talks about the government , I am most surprised that he failed to analyze in detail the assassination of JFK, Watergate, the counterculture movement of the 60's, and the Vietnam War. They collectively were the biggest single reason for the downfall of America's trust in politics. You can look at all of the graphics and statistics, and it's not hard to understand that the decline of participation started at the end of the 60's. It has everything to do with corruption. Churches are not excluded from it.

Simply put, citizens have been lied to, fooled, and scammed by the government that they have completely lost trust in it. That's why politicians of today do not, and have never, represented the citizens; their positions have been bought and paid for by special interest groups, corporations, and elites so that the laws are passed in the favor of them. They, not the people, are the problem and have caused the deep divide between the haves and the have-nots that still exists in America today.

At the same time, the media (such as CNN, FoxNews, etc.) have done an incredible job in furthering the divide because all they do are fan the flames, play the blame game, and put the words into people's mouths. I haven't seen news that is reported the way how news should be reported because opinions, along with analyses by various so-called experts, keep getting in the way.

It would be unfair to say Bowling Alone is outdated since it was written in 2000 because the Internet changed everything; I still consider it the biggest catalyst in terms of opening a can of worms when it comes to problems in America. So, that's why it would be interesting to read it again for the update of statistics to see how much the national picture has changed. Despite the positive aspects, the Internet has made the country more isolated than ever because it has become a nation of virtual communities. I see it plainly and clearly when I go out of the house and there are virtually no kids playing outside on the street.

Although my favorite chapter is Chapter 21 on Democracy, probably the biggest letdown is Section V: What Is To Be Done? which underscores the problems of the book. It's just too long, too repetitive, and too academic. Obviously, things were good after the end of WWII as everybody was united because they worked together for a common cause. It was also one of the longest national crises in America's history along with Civil War. The longer a national crisis goes, the longer the lingering effects of solidarity are felt. That's why the patriotism of 9/11 didn't last as long because the event only lasted for a day.

I honestly don't have a positive outlook of America and think that the problems have gone too far to be helped. I expect a point in the future that the people will get angry about what has been happening to themselves that they will start rioting to demand a change. The French once did it, and they changed the world even though it came at a huge price. Hence, I predict that in 200 to 300 years from now The United States of America will fall the way like the Roman Empire did because of decay and lack of investment in education, infrastructure, employment opportunities, and community relations. Today, everywhere I go to, I just see high-tech security, distrust, apathy, loss of some basic rights including privacy, and aggression. George Orwell wasn't too far off in his prediction when he wrote 1984.

All in all, Bowling Alone is an excellent study of the deteriorating social capital in America.

I expected Bowling Alone to be informative and dry, but I found it more interesting and illuminating than Coming Apart, the Charles Murray book I read 4 years ago that led me to this purchase.

I was pleased by the nuance of Putnam’s observations. He looks at scores of different measures of civic engagement that have generally been in decline since the ‘60s. He analyzes generational change, regional differences, and rural/suburban/urban differences. He differentiates between bridging social capital (across racial and class boundaries) and bonding social capital (strengthening bonds within a group). He puts to rest the myth that we have a stark choice between liberty and fraternity. Man is an individual, yes, but he is a social animal, too, and he thrives in a self-reinforcing community that encourages and develops virtue. (From my own perspective, Jesus is the “perfect law of liberty” (James 1:25) that circumcises the heart and gives unlimited freedom within God’s will, that puts to bed this myth, but Putnam offers scientific evidence.)

I think I can sum up Bowling Alone by saying that secular values, facilitated by technology and mass media, are the thrust behind the loss of social capital since the ‘60s. These secular values are individualism, materialism, and consumerism. Since Putnam wrote this book in 2000, America is much more humanist than materialist, valuing self-actualization and self-fulfillment more than wealth. I believe the pathologies that are fighting for space in the public square (like same-sex marriage and transgender acceptance) are driven by a view of man informed by these values. A sequel exploring these issues, along with analysis of the first 15 years of the century compared to the trend of the last 40 years of the previous century, is warranted.

Putnam doesn’t devote much thought to how to put America back on good civic footing. His six bare-bones recommendations span no more than 10 pages. Oddly absent from his general prescriptions is less mass media consumption, which he estimates is responsible for roughly half of our civic disengagement. (The decline began with Boomers, the first generation raised in front of the TV.) Also missing is a call for less government bureaucracy, which has exploded since LBJ’s Great Society initiatives, neatly coinciding with the decline’s onset in the ‘60s. Bureaucracy and revolutionary court decisions on abortion and same-sex marriage dispirit the populace. Why participate in determining your state’s social policy when the Supreme Court is going to rule a few years down the road that the plaintiffs have a right to self-fulfillment? I think Putnam misses how much mass immigration and forced diversity during an era of increasing global competition has turned materialistic Americans more into competitors than neighbors. Also he appears unable to admit the downside of social liberalism, which is the subsuming of useful norms and the increasing absurdity and foreignness of the terms of civic debate.

Overall, this is an excellent book and I recommend it to people who are curious about America’s observable decline. I just wouldn’t recommend it for those looking for solutions.

The book is still an interesting read because of the concept, but the author seems to think that "integration" and multiculturalism are positive things, and misses the cause of the dissolution of American community and the apathy and isolation that have plagued American public life.

In Bowling Alone Harvard professor Robert D. Putnam demonstrates the sharp decline in community and social participation in the United States since the 1960’s. The book is divided into five sections. Section one provides an introduction and states that the argument of the book is that Americans need to reconnect with one another. Section two covers some trends in engagement and social capital. For example, civic participation and church attendance has declined as has workplace connectedness and informal relationships. The title of the book refers to the fact that bowling in leagues has declined and now more people bowl alone rather than in a group. One area that has grown is spectator sports. Moreover, a lot of new groups are Washington-based organizations to which people belong only in the sense of contributing money to a cause. Section 3 covers why this change has happened and includes such possibilities as time pressures, mobility and growth of suburbs, technology and mass media and generational change. Professor Putnam attributes about half of the decline to generational change, 25% to electronic entertainment and the rest to the other factors. Section 4 asks So What. The answer is that social capital is good for a country. Children especially need it. It is important for economic success, health and democracy. Finally section 5 covers what Professor Putnam believes needs to be done to reverse these trends. In sum we need to address both the supply and demand for civic engagement. Among his specific recommendations is the need for more civic education in schools.

The book was published in 2000 and a lot of changes have occurred in the intervening year. It is my own personal observation that the situation has gotten even worse. Recently I was at the airport waiting for my flight and observed the other people who were waiting as well. Virtually all of them were engrossed in using an electronic device—a mobile phone or computer. Even families were so engaged. More and more we see in America the negative consequences of this lack of community and engagement. If anything there is a need for a more urgent call for the rebirth of community and social engagement in this country.

I rate the book at four stars solely because it was published in 2000 and thus is not the latest word on this topic. It is also highly academic and filled with charts and graphs that readers may find boring.

This was a disappointing and fascinating work. It is not an easy read, being at times very dry and over-full of charts and graphs. It looks deeply into the breakdown of social capital over the past half century and tries to draw conclusions. There are examinations of urban-sprawl, generational change, television and other technologies. What this book completely ignores is government. The one significant change in the mid to late sixties that might be most likely to effect social capital is the so-called "Great Society". Like so many other progressive programs and ideals; it was neither. When government takes "charge" it abrogates the responsibilities of the people.

This book seemed to go to great lengths to find some combination of factors to account for the sharp decline of social capital in our society since the sixties that would not point to government. I do not propose that government is the sole reason for the trend, but I do submit that it should not be ignored.

"Bowling Alone" was a lot more intense than I expected. I anticipate anecdotal evidence (backed by research) cataloging the decline in cohesiveness of American Society (as measured by "social capital"). What I found, instead, was a book that read like a graduate-leveled authored, 300-level Sociology textbook complete with endless expectorations of data, trends, comparisons, and statistics. At times, the statistical comparisons were so specific that it appeared that the data was in conflict with previous assertions. As I was trying to understand the "so what" in the breakdown of the American community, this book was a very tedious read. Also, while the author provided a synopsis of each chapter, the takeaways were not clear or compelling enough to support any conclusion beyond the obvious: society is trending away from cohesion and "social capital" is in a steady decline since the beginning of the last century.

This would be an excellent book for an undergraduate sociology class. The data is extensive, appears irrefutable, and the conclusions from the data seem very clear and straightforward. The author includes a significant number of graphs that clearly visualize the data and support the discussion. Additionally, some of the comparisons between groups is both enlightening and interesting to the discussion. However, the reader will need to wade through a significant amount of straight-up data to find the conclusions. As a reference book, the research is extensive; as pop sociology, it's too deep. Additionally, the path of the argument was a challenge to follow from chapter to chapter. The author successfully chose to attempt to identify specific reasons for the decline in "social capital", following the outline of a mystery novel to try to identify the killer. However, the chapter conclusions were short and did not adequately wrap up each topic (the reader cannot just read the conclusion of each chapter to understand the author's conclusions). The result was that the overall explanation for the break-up of the American community was a mix of reasons, and while the author attempts to explain the interactions across each, the subject does not allow for a clear explanation of who the killer actually was.

My two biggest disappointments with the book are, first, that it is now 18 years old (published in 2000) which, without an updated edition, begs the question of how the data would compare to sociological trend in this century. I kept finding that with the timing of this year-2000 published, non-updated version, the applicability to 2018 repeatedly came into question, especially with what appears to be such a rapid decline in "social capital" over the past decade plus. The second shortfall is that the book was published pre-9/11 which, I would expect, would have had a significant impact on the data with notable shifts in trends within the American community (at least in the short-term).

If you're looking for recent data, and some light reading to explain the obvious decline of "social capital" in American society, this is not the book you're looking for. If, however, you are a student of sociology, and need to get deep into the topic of "social capital", and the dated data to explain its decline leading up to the year 2000 then this book is a well-researched, coherent presentation of how that occurred.

My parents used to have dinner parties and cocktail parties. Their friends would come over to play cards. At Christmas tree-trimming was a family thing but there always seemed to be friends in the mix too and eggnog and cookies. Now that I'm the age my parents were, i look around and often feel lonely. I have friends. I have family. But I don't really feel like I have a community. Not in the way my parents and grandparents did. FACEBOOK can only do so much. This book was eye-opening for me. The science behind the solitude explained. If you're interested in social science, this is a book to read.

Recently , I felt a bit "disconnected" from society .I remembered having read the book "The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner by Alan Sillitoe , about 15 years ago .It is a modern classic about integrity, courage, and about confronting the system by a cross-country runner who seizes the perfect opportunity to defy the authority that governs his life.I also recalled this statement by Warren G. Bennis in "Geeks and Geezers:""Unable to hear my interior monologue,you may not realize that I am struggling at all-from the outside what I perceive as an ordeal , may look like a charmed existence.In this sense, the journey that transforms an individual into a leader is always a lonely one" .I also recollected the book"The Why of Work: How Great Leaders Build Abundant Organizations " by Dave and Wendy Ulrich in which he reminded us"of the value of investing in both close friends and broad social networks.Connecting us with others is one of the roles of vital friends at work.We all need at least some friends who play the important role of connecting us with people we don't necessarily claim as best friends" .Somewhat similar sentiments on increasing the value of our networks were echoed in"Glow: How You Can Radiate Energy, Innovation, and Success" by Lynda Gratton.It seems that the task of leadership is to add social capital to the community .A leader like Mahatma Gandhi adds social capital of the community in a big way

"Bowling Alone '(Simon and Schuster) by Robert D. Putnam had been on my shelf for about five years.Its 544 pages looked formidable and daunting .But this time , my curiosity to read it was strong enough to surmount the barrier of size .I took the risk of reading it slowly but regularly .I am happy that I chose to read this book .This book changes the way you think about life and social relationships.It is terrific in its insights , value and sweep.It is formidable in the sense that it has end notes running into 60 pages, index into 45 pages and charts and graphs and tables into about 100 pages.
Robert D. Putnam is a Professor of Public Policy at Harvard. Putnam initially wrote an article called"Bowling Alone:America's declining Social capital" in January 6,1995 issue of Journal of Democracy and this became -perhaps the most discussed social science article of the 20th century.Later on , in 2000, Putnam wrote this book called"Bowling Alone:The collapse and revival of American Community".Putnam's work has been enormously influential not only in the academic world but also in influencing Clinton's state of the union address of 1995 as also the Presidential Campaign of 2008.It deals with a fascinating topic of enduring interest , namely Social Capital .It is written with fresh insights on a familiar topic.It is a seminal work.The book is scholarly, enlightening , absorbing , engaging , , entertaining and provocative .It is relevant and readable.It is an agenda setting and impressive book .In a way , it is depressing as well .

What exactly is social capital?The earliest use of term social capital is traced to L J Hanifan, a state Superintendent of rural schools in 1916 as"goodwill , fellowship, sympathy and social intercourse . . (result in ). . an accumulation of social capital which may immediately satisfy(the individuals) needs and which may bear a social potentiality sufficient to the substantial improvement of living conditions in the whole community."Social capital includes friendships as well .It includes a smile , a kind word , a helping hand and group participation. There are two types of social capital .One is bridging or inclusive social capital .The other is bonding or exclusive capital."Bridging capital is more effective at bringing positive social effects."Putnam says that we should increase our bonding social capital among homogeneous groups and our bridging capital among diverse groups.

The book deals with nature of contemporary social reality .People find it more satisfying to bowl alone rather than bowl in leagues.There has been a widespread erosion of social engagement with our friends , neighbors and coworkers over the last half of 20th century.This trend explains our existentialist dilemma. How "disconnected" is every body?We know this to be intuitively true but Putnam has confirmed it empirically .This gives an appeal to his findings.
Why so many people have become isolated and out of touch with family , friends and community?Why there are fewer and fewer common experiences we can share with others at water cooler.?Why people are less inclined to volunteer their time to a non- profit?Does this mean degeneration if people want to live highly independent existence? Perhaps, our current relationships are becoming more genuine because location is increasingly less important when choosing friends and associates.Or do we need to renew our commitment to create and sustain meaningful relationships both professional and personal ?Many dislike the civic organizations of the past because it is a painful reminder of those times when racism and sexism ran rampant .Women's unpaid labour facilitated a lot of social capital.That is why , civic organization of the past have to fall apart and people must find new ways to connect with each other .We must form new and different kinds of communities with changing times. What , after all, is community?You need a vision of community that the vast majority of people have brought into, before you can talk about recapturing that sense of community.Our vision of a community needing conservation of resources ,energy , healthy economy should actually stimulate our need to work with others .We need to enhance social capital.We do not need to confuse in -grouping with community.

Simple correlation cannot be automatically substituted for causation .Should we watch less TV? Putnam attributes as much as 25% of the over all decline in social capital to the watching of television."People whose primary form of entertainment is watching television are three times more likely to give a fellow driver the finger".Generational change in attitudes towards the purpose and value of engagement is another major factor.The suburbs have contributed to an isolation that includes 72 minutes of commuting each day.The fact of women's greater place in the work force contributes to but does not cause the decline in civic engagement.
Loss of social capital allows for a plausible explanation of the rise of cheque book participation and the proliferation of letter heads over civic action by individuals.It encourages citizenship by proxy , which is an oxymoron.The increased use of professional campaign staff to replace volunteers and the need for corporate and other special interest money to maintain this form of 'democracy' is a profound change.What is the relationship of social capital with happiness and other quality of life measures?"People who are socially disconnected are between two and five times more likely to die from all causes, compared with matched individuals who have close ties with family, friends and the community."Social capital enhances individual's life and well being."Happiness and health depends on whether or not individuals participate in groups .If you decide to join (a group), you can cut your risk of dying over the next year in half."The book documents the importance of bridging relationships on the development of the country and even on personal health.Loneliness may decrease the immune response.Voluntary associations produce external and internal benefits to democracy.Informal networks have helped individuals in Silicon Valley prosper.

Putnam ignores the role of the government and law suits while explaining the causes of loss of social capital.He does not pay much attention to the growth of welfare which eliminated the reason for existence of many charitable organizations.State policies pay out unemployment insurance and do other welfare activities.There is no exclusionary reason to belong to mutual aid society. As a result ,societies close their doors and with them , presumably , a host of other activities suffer.Taking away control from local governments and centralizing it, the centre of decision making and power has moved far away from the community,making participation in local affairs much less relevant and leads to the huge lobbying organization.Intermediary organizations are crucial for the healthy working of modern democracies. .Public interest organizations are now oligarchies and useless as a means of civic engagement.This pattern has been repeated for education, care for the elderly, health care and other aspects of life.Is there any wonder that people are less involved with their neighbors.?

Putnam is too willing to rely on government intervention to change people's attitudes and behavior..Putnam idolizes the Progressive period and the resulting increase in scope of state action.All his proposals treat the symptoms and not the disease.He recommends:
!.Public discourse.
2.Education .
3.Work place changes.
4.internet.
5.Elimination of digital divide and ensuring equal access.
6.Increased political involvement .
7. Election Campaign reforms.
Putnam's call to action by 2010 seems inappropriate for this book .It looks like the silly last action . There are costs of using government to bring Putnam's agenda into being .Putnam has used websites and seminars promoting social capital under the auspices of Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government .Market forces resolve such issues in total far more efficiently than does legislative fiat.
There is a dark side of social capital as well ."Too much fraternity is bad for liberty and equality, leading for example , to an increase in organizational crime but Putnam believes that on balance the benefits of copious social capital broadly outweigh these costs.
Internet,Facebook , twitter and mobile phones are not adequately covered because these things came into use in a big way only after 2000 when the book was published.To that extent , the book is dated.It is not clear whether the internet fosters the development of social capital. Some believe that Internet is the number one cause of alienation and political narcissism in America. Computer groups are worse at generating trust and reciprocity.What are the issues and initiatives relating to community building?Does participation in society mean meeting in physical presence , or can meeting be virtual , on Skype or through video conferencing?Only time will tell.

There is no tradeoff between deep personal relationships with friends elsewhere and a dozen bowling buddies at our place of residence.The book does not talk about where the balance should lie between the bonding and bridging social capital.

The book does result in a shift in thinking paradigm about ourselves and our personal ,professional and social relationships.It offers a lot to think about. However while it has very well done the cataloging of the shift in social capital in our society it seems to long for the good old days.Book's strength is in its diagnosis.There is no doubt that the book is set in America and its results and conclusions cannot be applied straight away to Indian situation.But then , it is very provocative and will certainly make you think and reflect its implications for that India , which is as global as America , or is at least aspiring to become like America.As the society progresses, there seems to be a distinct possibility that the social capital further declines , especially in developing countries .Enhancement of social capital in the organizations and society , then , becomes an essential and critical role of a leader.I do not like to believe that ultimately , a real leader himself or herself is lonely in his pursuit , but I am not sure.At individual level , we need to understand and appreciate not only the importance of social capital in our lives but also the causes underlying the trend of declining social capital ,and contribute our support to public policies and lifestyles which enhance our level of civic engagement in an authentic manner.

Putnam’s Bowling Alone is a conceptually innovative book that is impressive in its empirical scope and written in a fashion that is truly intriguing and thought-provoking. However, there are various inconsistencies in how Putnam operationalizes the concept of social capital (SC), compared to how he did it in Making Democracy Work (1993)—which was more convincing. These inconsistencies combine with empirical omissions in ways that cast considerable doubts on some of Putnam’s key propositions.
A first inconsistency concerns the notion of SC’s stability. In Making Democracy Work we learn that accumulated stocks of SC can last for more than 1,000 years, whereas in Bowling Alone we are told that America’s SC evaporated in just a generation. These are so inherently contradicting views on the stability versus volatility of SC that both cannot be true at the same time. Thus, either Putnam’s view on the stability of SC in Italy or his view on its volatility in the US is greatly exaggerated.
In Making Democracy Work, Putnam emphasizes the notion of generalized trust between people, that is, trust that goes beyond the scope of one’s ingroup, involving people one does not intimately know. I think that Putnam is perfectly right in emphasizing this form of trust because it is indeed important for a market economy and a civil society. Both of these can only function in a larger territory if human interactions are based on mutually agreed interests among people who have no personal relationship. Generalized trust is necessary to allow for interactions between people at different locations in a society—a precondition to give market economies and civil societies a supra-local cohesion.
Implicitly, Putnam changes his notion of trust in Bowling Alone. This is obvious from the examples he is using, all of which involve the building-up of personal relations in localized communities--the very contrary of networked communities with no local focus. Putnam is now concerned with the opposite of generalized trust: personalized trust. He looks at the specific form of trust that holds together traditionally localized communities, not modern networked communities.
Personalized trust is usually holistic. Because one knows a person intimately, one trusts (or distrusts) this person more or less completely in all matters of life. By contrast, generalized trust refers to people of whom one doesn’t have intimate knowledge and with whom one is supposed to perform a specific transaction only. If you trust your plumber that s/he is making a good repair job when it comes to faucets, you will not necessarily entrust your kids to this person. Transaction-specific trust is limited to the roles people are performing. This trust does not spill over to other transactions than the ones people perform in a certain role. Yet, in order to get economic and civic transactions between people going, transaction-specific trust is all you need. In that sense, Putnam is greatly exaggerating the importance of more intense forms of personal trust for the functioning of modern societies.
Putnam argues that “tertiary” associations such as Green Peace create less SC than “secondary” associations such as card playing clubs. His argument is that tertiary associations do not live from membership activities; they only create “symbolic identities” with issues without ever bringing the members of these issue communities together. Thus, there is no social experience created by tertiary associations, whereas secondary associations have local chapters where people meet and interact.
There are good reasons to doubt that the personal ties created by a local club manifest a stronger and more powerful form of SC than the issue ties created by a supra-local organization or social movement. Greenpeace, for instance, was able to initiate and coordinate a consumer boycott across all of Western Europe that forced the Shell company to give up its plan to sink one of its oil platforms in the Northern Sea. This was a splendid example of collective action, coordinating the activities of millions of people across countries. Few of these people had personal ties among each other, yet they shared a common symbolic identity that made the coordination of their activities possible: all these people had a tie to the issue of environmental protection. Local clubs are not able to launch any activities beyond the scope of their locality. Considering supra-local coordination, they are poor rather than rich in SC.
Putnam portrays a picture in which local tie-building activities appear as the epitome of a flourishing society. But this can be entirely misleading. Research has shown that local tie-building activities are much more intense in some areas of Russia than in most areas of the US. More generally, local tie-building activities are more intense in poorer societies than in richer ones. People in poorer societies need to invest in these activities in order to get via mutual help networks what they cannot get via markets or the state. Thus, the florescence of these need-driven networks is in no way an indication of a healthy society. It is a sign of state failure and market failure; it actually indicates under-development. At the same time as Putnam overemphasizes the benefits of local tie-building activities, he underestimates the benefits of supra-local networking activities. These activities are more choice-driven and not reflected in official membership registers. In summary, I think that Putnam shows us only one side of the coin of a modernizing process: the decline of need-based forms of SC. The other side, which he overlooks, is the increase of choice-driven forms of SC.
Despite these weaknesses, Bowling Alone is worth reading, especially in connection with Florida’s The Creative Class (2003) and Dalton’s The Good Citizens (2007). Both of these books provide vivid counter-perspectives to Bowling Alone.

Cole Waters
Freelance Science Writer
Riverside, CA

Social movements create social capital. Unfortunately there has been a bureaucratization of social discontent. The public interest organizations are now oligarchic and useless as a means of civic engagement. It is not clear whether the internet fosters the development of social capital. Computer groups are worse at generating trust and reciprocity.

The author discusses the issue, why civil bonds have atrophied. The growth of education has not increased civic engagement. The economic climate probably has increased anxiety. Financial anxiety does contribute to social disengagement, but the trend began before the economic troubles of the 1970's. The fact of women's greater place in the workforce contributes to but does not cause the decline in civic engagement.

Living in a large metropolitan area weakens civic engagement and social ties. In the 1950's suburbanization brought organizers of togetherness, high levels of community participation. In later years life-style enclaves fragmented suburbs resulting in reduced interaction. Gated communities are introverted. Also, lives are centered in the house, rather than in the neighborhood or community.

Spatial fragmentation separating home from work and commuting are bad for community life. Sprawl disrupts the boundedness of communities. Newspaper reading and active citizenship are linked. Generational differences account for much of the civil disengagement. Television's role in the matter of disengagement is analyzed at length. Civic America is graying.

War seems to spur civic activism and immediate postwar periods were times when organizations such as the Elks, the Boy Scouts, the Grange, the League of Women Voters were formed or substantially strengthened. There is mobilizing power in shared adversity.

Child development is shaped by social capital. Informal social networks help children. Absent social capital, there has been a diminution of such networks since the 1960's. Adult unemployment, poverty, and family breakdown are magnified in poor neighborhoods. (The breakdown of communities continues in more privileged sections also.)

Findings about weak ties bolster the point that social capital determines who gets ahead. Informal networks have helped individuals in Tupelo, Mississippi, and Silicon Valley prosper. Social connectedness promotes health and well-being. Loneliness may decrease the immune response. Voluntary associations produce external and internal benefits to democracy.

Did the stresses of modernity cause social capital to erode? Progressive Era critics exaggerated the vices of the cities. Half of the membership associations in the U.S. were founded between 1870 and 1920. It was a time of exceptional civic creativity. The Chautauqua Movement was established and grew. Settlement houses contributed to the betterment of the urban poor and trained leaders.

Thinking of the future, we know that community service programs spur greater civic engagement. Workplaces could assist in social capital formation. Substantial notes and charts appear at the conclusion of this excellent work.

This significant volume from 2000 examined voluminous research and came to the conclusion that social cohesiveness in the USA is breaking down. (The decline of such informal groups as after-work bowling or home poker games was surveyed, as well as more organized events like PTA meetings or Scout membership.) Well written, well thought out -- I'd give it five stars were it not for the fact the book is now seventeen years old.

Judging by Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone, his version of anarchy lies somewhere between Hobbesian bellum omnium contra omnes and one in which everyone retreats behind computer and TV screens and refuses to interact in meatspace. I think that is an unfair view of mutualist anarchy.

The book divides its subject, American withddrawal since roughly 1960, into four sections. The first is a cataloguing of all of the data which shows we are less involved with one another through everything from Free Masonry to cardplaying; the second is an analysis of why this has happened; the third is a discussion of the benefits of our lost communalism, and the fourth is a set of recommendations to restore the participation experienced in the 1950s. I found them decreasingly interesting as I went.

There is a problem in that Putnam looks only at what was and finds less of it, rather than what is and looking for the growth in new things. Putnam notes these problems and seems hopeful (in 1999) that the social aspects of the internet will lend themselves to increasing contact, but there is still room for skepticism.

The next section seems more problematic. While he spends many pages to exonerate the entry of women into the workplace, and more to partially convict television, he spends just over one page exonerating the state. He does this by noting that state spending barely changed in the period as a percentage of GDP. This seems disingenuous at best. I think the reason becomes more clear as he proceeds.

While Putnam acknowledges David Beito's work in From Mutual Aid to the Welfare State: Fraternal Societies and Social Services, 1890-1967, he doesn't seem to have absorbed the one relevant thing that he should have been most interested in from Beito's account. That is, that Mutual Aid organizations became so happy with the outcome of their efforts that they began to lobby their respective States for policies to mandate worker's insurance, and this was successful to their own detriment. After the States adopted laws to pay out unemployment insurance, there was no exclusionary reason to belong to a mutual aid society (see Manur Olson's The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups, Second printing with new preface and appendix (Harvard Economic Studies) for explanation and expansion of this theme), so they closed their doors, and with them, presumably, a host of other activities suffered. Thereafter, the federal government began to get involved in this sort of activity and the center of decision-making and power has moved far away from the community. Considering how this pattern has been repeated for education, care for the elderly, health care, and other aspects of life, is there any wonder that people are less involved with their neighbors?

Finally, laws don't only cost the state time and money, they frequently cost the citizens in the way of unfunded mandates and unintended consequences. If I have to spend more time trying to understand and comply with laws, that is time I cannot spend with my neighbors.

When describing what should be done to restore American community, Putnam tips his hand and reveals his real interest in social capital: he idolizes the Progressive period and the resulting increase in scope of state action. Curiously, it seems that his analytical skills abandon him at this point. He begins by noting the Gilded Age period preceding the Progressive Era and finds it wanting, and then locates all of the success in the Progressive period. He doesn't use "hyperindividualist" to describe the Gilded Age, but comes damn close. But if you look at the data he provides, you can see that community activity is clearly growing during the Gilded Age and peaks and perhaps even falters during the Progressive period. Why is the peak period considered to be the most successful? Why no interest in the growth that preceded it, or in the reasons that activity fell off immediately afterward? I would think the interesting research would be in looking at change and the reasons for it, not steady state operation.

In the end, while I am sympathetic to the general program of looking at community participation and social capital, I was not happy with what I perceived to be Putnam's goal. He does not seem to think that social capital is valuable in and of itself. Rather, he seems to believe that social capital is valuable as a means to petition government for more programs. Ironically, he seems to be surprised or curiously uncurious whenever the people succeed in getting those programs, as happened after the first Progressive hey-day (after 1920) and after the expansion in the welfare state in the 1960s.

Putnam, in _Bowling Alone_, traces the decline in group membership that happened in the later part of the twentieth century. He shows that we now lack a certain cohesiveness, termed `social capital,' that the generation before the boomers had in spades. In this book, which is heavily researched and supported with much evidence, he shows that this decline is real, that it is bad, there were analogous declines in American history, and tries to find the driving forces behind the decline. Don't tell my wife, but he sees the biggest factor as being the rise of television. Call it anomie, or call it lack of social capital, I feel Putnam's critiques in my own life every time I stay on my couch and watch television instead of going out and making and reinforcing social links.

Putnam also makes some prescriptions for what can be done to turn around our lack of social capital. Interestingly, these prescriptions are made in 2000 for full implementation in 2010. My sense, as I was reading them, is that we have not made adequate progress towards his stated goals. I don't think this is his fault or ours. One thing that struck me while reading this book is that while the book was written only ten years ago, it feels really dated. He was on the other side of the rise of social media, wars, the Bush presidency, cable news, 9/11, and everything else from our turbulent last decade. Many of these factors have helped, in my own opinion, ameliorate the distances we suffer from, while at the same time reinforcing the sense of the `other' we have with those who disagree with. I don't have the data nor the background to do this, but a reexamination of the decline needs to be done in light of these outside changes. I do not suspect that the broad scope would be different, but the details sure would be.

The massive book, which repeatedly sledge hammered its thesis home with reams of statistics, defeated me in short order. The same points could have been made with half the paper. I'm glad I only paid $2.99 at the Goodwill store, which is where it was returned. I'm especially glad I'm not at university with this on my reading list. One of those books where you are better off catching a few reviews and podcasts at the time it came out, and then move on to the next big bestseller.

This work is both scholarly and yet accessible to the average citizen. Putman documents in considerable detail the cultural trend in the U.S. away from civic organizations both formal and informal. The collection of research over many decades is quite amazing. Yet this data is presented in an understandable way with graphs and summary descriptions. The conclusion is what anyone of a certain age already knows and that is people are less social today than decades ago. One illumination for me is how that social isolation results in negative effects in areas such as crime, prosperity, education, government and even health. This appears to be well documented and is not just "shooting from the hip".
There are a few deficiencies in this book however. First, the "cause" of this phenomena as "generational "succession" is a good observation but not a cause. Why is generational succession occurring? The arguments are incomplete. Secondly, the sub-title "...Revival of the American Community" is never really presented. The solutions to the problem (if it is indeed a problem) are the weak part of the book. Taking lessons from the "gilded age" and the turn of the 20th century don't seem to connect with me.
In summary, I think this is an important book but is only the beginning of the discussion. From an individual perspective, there are still plenty of social groups to become involved with and they are not that hard to find. Let this book turn the light inward upon ourselves. We are relational creatures. Let's take the initiative, turn the TV off and become involved. By the way, despite today's over-the-top rhetoric, the church is alive and is a welcoming place. Come and get connected.

"Bowling Alone" is an impressive book that examines why American's participation in social activities has been declining since the 1960s. It addresses all the reasons you might anticipate, effectively disproving some and reinforcing others with good evidence. Putnam's methods are solid. He gathers an extraordinary amount of data from across a wide range of fields, and is appropriately conservative about drawing conclusions from them. He is very mindful that he is dealing mainly in correlations, which don't prove causation. Given that, he is able to piece together some very interesting conclusions.
The first section of the book demonstrates how participation in social activities grew steadily from the early part of the century until the 1960s, with a dip during the depression, and then has steadily declined ever since. He looks at just about any activity you can think of, including participation in organized activities (religion, clubs, civic organizations, school-related activities, and of course bowling teams) as well as informal social activities (having friends over for dinner, socializing at work, hanging out in bars, even going on picnics). Across the board, every one has declined in just about the same pattern. He explains how the declines have reduced "social capital," which is correlated with lower trust, higher crime, higher stress, and many other bad things. He makes a distinction between "briding capital" (light connections among people of different groups) and "bonding capital" (strong connections among those within groups), explaining that briding capital is more effective at bringing positive social effects.
In the second section, he takes on the reasons for the decline. Since this isn't a mystery novel, I'll give the interesting punchline (which should whet your appetite for more): Mostly it's because each generation since the pre-war generation has been less socially inclined -- the people haven't been changing, the generations have. WWII had a lot to do with this. The other big reasons is television. TV has sucked up most of our free time, and each generation has watched more of it, more often alone, and more often just to "see what's on" rather than watching specific shows. More minor causes are the entry of women in the workforce (since women do a lot more organizing of social events than men) and urban sprawl (since it takes a lot more time and effort to see friends or attend events). Most other explanations don't pan out at all.
The last section talks about the "So what?" He shows how social capital is the strongest correlate with quality of education (not government spending). Higher social capital is also related to safer neighborhoods, better health, more happiness, and higher tolerance. Earlier in the book, there is an interesting discussion of the use of technology and its relationship to social capital, although he rightly says that it is far too early to tell what effect the internet will have on social captial, since he is dealing in such broad trends.
I got a lot out of reading this book and it has made me think about the choices I've made in favor of independence over the obligations of social membership. Although well written, the book was a little more academic than I expected. I also wasn't quite clear on the "why" behind the generations finding. Surely the war did have an effect, but it didn't explain why the children of baby boomers are even more individualist than their parents. It seemed like there was more explaining to do. Putnam also has a silly last section that is a call to action that seems inappropriate for this book. Still, this is an impressive book that had changed my thinking. I hope it is used by public policy experts and other decision makers.

If this book made no contribution whatsoever to the study of political science it could still be handed out to aspiring authors as a treatise on how to write a scholarly work.
In "Bowling Alone", Robet Putnam has managed to find a wonderful balance between academic rigor and readability, producing a book that is, at once, informative and a pleasure to read. On the academic side, the body of information Putnam has sifted through is simply amazing; there is almost no fact that Putnam has not probed underneath and no idea that he has not already thought of. Despite the scholarly nature of this book, though, Putnam's prose is well-written and littered with livid examples that make the text flow by at breakneck speed.
Like many other books, "Bowling Alone" is a polemic against an aspect of American society; unlike many other polemics "Bowling Alone" does not contain rhetorical flourish and incindeary calls-to-arms. Rather Putnam calmly and methodically presents his analysis and lets the facts speak for themselves. This is apprciated and gives Putnams work all the more validity.
Putman's thesis is that a decline in social connectedness among Americans has had rippling effects throughout several diverse aspects of society. Putnam characterizes the social connctions we make as 'social capital' (analoagous to other forms of capital, such as factories) and argues that the loss of social capital also leads to a loss of other things such as reciprocity among neighbors and trust.
In the first section of "Bowling Alone" Putnam presents his evidence for the decline of social capital in America. What makes Putnam's evidence convincing is the magnitude and breadth of information presented. Putnam finds evidence of social decline in many diverse studies, and in each piece of evidence he presents Putnam does his best to rule out explanations other than the one he is positing.
After displaying his evidence for social decline, Putnam moves on to offer a explanations as to why this has happened. These explanations, while valid, are certainly far from the last word on the topic, a point which Putnam wisely conceedes in the introduction to this section. In the next section Putnam explains to us why the decline in social capital is bad for America, in effect asking 'so what', and again providing voluminous data and expelling other explnations (although not as rigoriously as in the first section). Lastly, Putnam offers a few words as to what is to be done.
The strength of this book is in the evidence it marshalls in favor of a decline of social capital in America. The other portions of this book, why, so what, and what is to be done, are well written, but are clearly not as definitive as the first section. However, Putnam cannot be held too responsible for this; satisfactory explorations of these topics would take several more books.
Overall, in "Bowling Alone" Putnam has done a service to his country by alerting us to a disturbing trend in American society. Hopefully now that Putnam has raised the alarum, others will follow his lead, some producing more work on this important topic, others doing their part to reverse the decline of social capital by participating in their communities.

Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone is not an extended essay on how the author feels that people in America are not engaging socially with one another as much as they used to. Its emphasis is on looking at a myriad of statistics that prove that we are not as socially engaged as we used to be. He looks at the declining memberships in all the clubs and organizations and he examines the decline in informal socializing such as playing card games and having friends over for dinner.
He then examines why we are less socially engaged. He thinks that it is mainly because the civic generation that was coming of age or in adulthood during the WWII and the civil rights era is dying off. It seems that a crisis like a war increases peoples' civic consciousness as they pull together to solve the crisis. He also blames TV watching since it is an increasingly private entertainment that discourages people from seeking out more social entertainments. Two career families and commuting also have a smaller adverse effect on "social capital", that term he uses to identify the social engagement of a nation. Putnam again analyzes statistics for this section to prove what is deciminating social capital.
In the 3rd section, Putnam explains why it is important for a democratic society to have social capital. He looks at stats of states that have high social capital such as the upper midwest and upper northeast and compares them to the low capital states of the south and NV. He comes to the conclusion that people are happier, healthier, wealthier, more productive, more tolerant, and safer in states where there is high social capital. Surprisingly, he proves that communities are not repressive when they nurture, which runs contrary to my experience.
The fourth section talks about how we can increase social capital by looking at what people did at the turn of the century to increase it when the capital was running low. A lot of our present organizations were organized then. He also says that we should increase our bonding social capital among homogeneous groups and our bridging capital among diverse groups.
Putnam says it is unclear whether diversity destroys community. He says that homogeneous communities do not interact as much as diverse ones, and people should engage with others that they are different from or even hostile to. Putnam explains that the northern midwestern and the most northeastern states have a traditional communitarian culture of high social capital because they are more egalitarian than other states that are more libertarian or elitist.
Bowling Alone makes a nice companion piece to The Fourth Turning for those who like to study the discimination and rebuilding of societies in different eras of history. --Oh and I guess we could be more socialable.

Regardless of whether you accept Putnam's rather inclusive defintion of social capital, I believe you cannot quarrel with his empirical results concerning the decline in civic engagement. Using an amazing array of sources, he shows that many different forms of civic participation, as well as just plain sociable interaction, have declined drastically over the past 4 decades.
I am impressed by his determination to leave no stone unturned in looking for data. He uses Roper polls, Gallup polls, the General Social Survey, trade association data, Census Bureau information, and a myriad of other sources. He entertains alternative interpretations of patterns and then shows how his is, usually, at least as plausible and often better. In his thoroughness, he presents a model for other social scientists to follow when they are trying to convince skeptics about the existence of previously unnoticed events.
Most impressive, he clearly explains what a "cohort effect" is, and shows that almost all of the decline in civic engagement is due to younger, less-engaged generations replacing older, more-engaged ones. That is, it is NOT a matter of people changing as they aged through the turbulent 60s and 70s, but rather a matter of our children and grandchildren failing to adopt our -- the older generation -- civic habits.
I wasn't particuarly happy with his decision to use state-level measures of social capital in the last third of his book, but by then I had already become convinced of Putnam's major point: times have changed, and the 1940s and 50s were special decades. We won't see their level of civic engagement again, unless something changes radically in our society.
I highly recommend this book to those of you who love Malcolm Gladwell's work. This is what Gladwell would do, if he had Putnam's training in data analysis!

Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone is a well-planned and exhaustively researched examination of America's civic and social participation. Few bestselling books have 60 pages of endnotes, over 100 charts and tables, and an index spanning 45 pages. If for no other reason, nonprofit sector professionals should buy this book for its statistical and reference data alone. However, this book is far more than a reference volume; it uses data to tell a compelling story about America's civic and social involvement in the 20th century.
The data reported in the book confirm all kinds of influences that have been discussed by public policy experts, social researchers, and watercooler gossips for years -- declining civic club memberships; fewer people willing to take leadership positions in PTA, Boy Scouts, school boards, city councils, and countless other "community-building" pursuits. Mr. Putnam addresses changing lifestyles, from two-paycheck and single-parent families to the increasing time consumed by home-workplace commuting, television, and other "cocooning" activities that reduce time and energy for "other-directed" activity.
The book's subtitle, "The Collapse and Revival of American Community," is an apt description of the book that has been misunderstood by many of its critics. Although Professor Putnam (Public Policy professor at Harvard) spends much of the book demonstrating the decline of civic & social involvement and community in America during the last third of our century, he also discusses possible causal factors and even offers suggestions for renewal.
The book's final chapter compares America's late 19th century with the late 20th century. He identifies numerous similarities that, he believes, point the way to addressing the current crisis as he sees it. The chapter includes italicized goals for improvement in civic and social involvement.
The topic and thesis of the book, originally raised in a 1995 magazine article, will be with us for several more years. The Ford Foundation and a group of community foundations have given Mr. Putnam $1 million to conduct additional research on how communities are addressing community-building issues and how effective those initiatives are.
The exhaustive research, enduring interest in the topic, and guaranteed future events related to this book and author are three of many reasons why this book should be on all reference bookshelves. More importantly, Mr. Putnam challenges our assumptions and offers an important lens though which to view the social and civic habits of our co-workers, volunteers, friends, family, and, ultimately, ourselves.

Robert D. Putnam's BOWLING ALONE provides what is, arguably, the most robust scientific treatment in a single volume of the conversation about friendship and its benefits begun by Aristotle nearly twenty-four centuries ago, a conversation about what has now come to be called "social capital" :

"...how can prosperity be guarded and preserved without friends...And in poverty and in other misfortunes men think friends are the only refuge. It helps the young, too, to keep them from error; it aids older people by ministering to their needs and supplementing the activities that are failing from weakness; those in the prime of life it stimulates to noble action." [And,] "Friendship seems too to hold states together..." (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics).

No less importantly than this Aristotelian connection, Putnam joins earlier 20th Century writers to enlarge Adam Smith's emphasis on the productive effects of `capital.' Smith wrote:

...the produce of a man's own labour can supply but a very small part of his occasional wants. The far greater part of them are supplied by the produce of other men's labour, which he purchases...with the price of the produce of his own...A stock of goods of different kinds, therefore, must be stored up somewhere sufficient to maintain him, and to supply him with the materials and tools of his work... (Introduction to Book II, Wealth of Nations)

BOWLING ALONE demonstrates how this "stock of goods" including the effects of friendship, reciprocity, sympathy, trust, and integrity, become the "materials and tools" fundamental to the health of the community. Thus, emphasizing the productive nature of affiliation, social capital - a smile, a kind word, a helping hand, group participation - gets "saved," in our rolodexes or their hippocampal versions, to be used advantageously another day. Here one notes that, though little emphasized by most contemporary cheerleaders for unfettered Capitalism, Adam Smith, too, emphasized sympathy, rather than petty selfishness, as one of Capitalism's essential ingredients.

Putnam provides a vast array of empirical data documenting the productive effects of friendship and communal action on politics (Chap. 2), community involvement (Chap. 3), religious participation (Chap. 4), workplace association (Chap. 5), informal social activity (Chap. 6) and altruistic activity (Chap. 7). In any of these venues, reciprocity, honesty, and trust compose the yeast for productive social activity (Chap. 8).

Putnam's interpretation of the data convincingly indicates that some generations are equaler than others. Over the half-century leading up to the publication of Putnam's book, the combination of television, suburbanization, the changing nature of work, have been factors in the dwindling of our social "goods." But most significantly, shifts in generational norms (Chaps. 10-15), have resulted in "anticivic contagion," the substantial decline in the activities that generate social capital (Chaps. 2-8), though there are exceptions (Chap. 9). In astonishing geographic detail, Putnam graphs (Figures 80-89) the correlations between social capital and its deficits in American community life, public affairs, volunteerism, sociability and trust (Chaps. 16). These are tied quite demonstrably to costs for education and children's welfare (Chap. 17), safe and productive neighborhoods (Chap. 18), economic prosperity (Chap. 19), health and happiness (Chap 20), and participatory democracy (Chap. 21). In the last two chapters (Chaps. 23, 24) he details what might be done to replenish social capital and "walking the walk" has introduced websites and seminars promoting social capital under the auspices of Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Putnam recognizes other earlier uses of the phrase "social capital" with varying degrees of specificity, tracing its earliest use to L. J. Hanifan, a state superintendent of rural schools in 1916:

"good will, fellowship, sympathy, and social intercourse...[result in] an accumulation of social capital which may immediately satisfy [the individuals] needs and which may bear a social potentiality sufficient to the substantial improvement of living conditions in the whole community."

Others who have used the phrase include Jane Jacobs, who applied it to the health of neighborhoods (The Death and Life of Great American Cities, 1961), and Pierre Bourdieu who emphasized it in the contexts of social competition (The forms of capital. In: John G. Richardson (ed.): Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education. New York: Greenwood Press 1986). But, Putnam goes further than any earlier writer, applying the concept to the communal health of a nation.

The concept of social capital, and particularly Putnam's rendering of it, is not without its critics whose objections are on semantic, philosophical, empirical and policy terms. Andy Blunden objects to its quantification and to the causal ambiguity of correlations that Putnam uses to support his inferences, though I think Putnam does not dismiss the likelihood of hidden variables that might be influencing the more apparent ones. The eminent sociologist Alejandro Portes takes up similar issues (Social Capital: Its Origins and Applications in Modern Sociology, Annu. Rev. Sociol. 1998. 24:1.24), though, in fairness, his critique was on Putnam's earlier work in this area and BOWLING ALONE effectively addresses some of them. Theda Skocpol tellingly argues that Putnam's approach essentially blames the victim (cf. Unraveling From Above, The American Prospect no. 25 (March-April 1996): 20-25.).

The critiques notwithstanding, Putnam's work has been enormously influential even beyond the halls of academe, insinuating itself into state of the union addresses (Clinton, 1995) and the current presidential campaign (bridging v. bonding capital). For more specifics about how social capital has interrelated effects up and down the conceptual ladder from the genome to community life see A. R. Cellura's The Genomic Environment and Niche-Experience (Cedar Springs Press, 2006).

Regardless of whether you accept Putnam's rather inclusive defintion of social capital, I believe you cannot quarrel with his empirical results concerning the decline in civic engagement. Using an amazing array of sources, he shows that many different forms of civic participation, as well as just plain sociable interaction, have declined drastically over the past 4 decades.
I am impressed by his determination to leave no stone unturned in looking for data. He uses Roper polls, Gallup polls, the General Social Survey, trade association data, Census Bureau information, and a myriad of other sources. He entertains alternative interpretations of patterns and then shows how his is, usually, at least as plausible and often better. In his thoroughness, he presents a model for other social scientists to follow when they are trying to convince skeptics about the existence of previously unnoticed events.
Most impressive, he clearly explains what a "cohort effect" is, and shows that almost all of the decline in civic engagement is due to younger, less-engaged generations replacing older, more-engaged ones. That is, it is NOT a matter of people changing as they aged through the turbulent 60s and 70s, but rather a matter of our children and grandchildren failing to adopt our -- the older generation -- civic habits.
I wasn't particuarly happy with his decision to use state-level measures of social capital in the last third of his book, but by then I had already become convinced of Putnam's major point: times have changed, and the 1940s and 50s were special decades. We won't see their level of civic engagement again, unless something changes radically in our society.
I highly recommend this book to those of you who love Malcolm Gladwell's work. This is what Gladwell would do, if he had Putnam's training in data analysis!

Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone is a well-planned and exhaustively researched examination of America's civic and social participation. Few bestselling books have 60 pages of endnotes, over 100 charts and tables, and an index spanning 45 pages. If for no other reason, nonprofit sector professionals should buy this book for its statistical and reference data alone. However, this book is far more than a reference volume; it uses data to tell a compelling story about America's civic and social involvement in the 20th century.
The data reported in the book confirm all kinds of influences that have been discussed by public policy experts, social researchers, and watercooler gossips for years -- declining civic club memberships; fewer people willing to take leadership positions in PTA, Boy Scouts, school boards, city councils, and countless other "community-building" pursuits. Mr. Putnam addresses changing lifestyles, from two-paycheck and single-parent families to the increasing time consumed by home-workplace commuting, television, and other "cocooning" activities that reduce time and energy for "other-directed" activity.
The book's subtitle, "The Collapse and Revival of American Community," is an apt description of the book that has been misunderstood by many of its critics. Although Professor Putnam (Public Policy professor at Harvard) spends much of the book demonstrating the decline of civic & social involvement and community in America during the last third of our century, he also discusses possible causal factors and even offers suggestions for renewal.
The book's final chapter compares America's late 19th century with the late 20th century. He identifies numerous similarities that, he believes, point the way to addressing the current crisis as he sees it. The chapter includes italicized goals for improvement in civic and social involvement.
The topic and thesis of the book, originally raised in a 1995 magazine article, will be with us for several more years. The Ford Foundation and a group of community foundations have given Mr. Putnam $1 million to conduct additional research on how communities are addressing community-building issues and how effective those initiatives are.
The exhaustive research, enduring interest in the topic, and guaranteed future events related to this book and author are three of many reasons why this book should be on all reference bookshelves. More importantly, Mr. Putnam challenges our assumptions and offers an important lens though which to view the social and civic habits of our co-workers, volunteers, friends, family, and, ultimately, ourselves.

Robert D. Putnam's BOWLING ALONE provides what is, arguably, the most robust scientific treatment in a single volume of the conversation about friendship and its benefits begun by Aristotle nearly twenty-four centuries ago, a conversation about what has now come to be called "social capital" :

"...how can prosperity be guarded and preserved without friends...And in poverty and in other misfortunes men think friends are the only refuge. It helps the young, too, to keep them from error; it aids older people by ministering to their needs and supplementing the activities that are failing from weakness; those in the prime of life it stimulates to noble action." [And,] "Friendship seems too to hold states together..." (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics).

No less importantly than this Aristotelian connection, Putnam joins earlier 20th Century writers to enlarge Adam Smith's emphasis on the productive effects of `capital.' Smith wrote:

...the produce of a man's own labour can supply but a very small part of his occasional wants. The far greater part of them are supplied by the produce of other men's labour, which he purchases...with the price of the produce of his own...A stock of goods of different kinds, therefore, must be stored up somewhere sufficient to maintain him, and to supply him with the materials and tools of his work... (Introduction to Book II, Wealth of Nations)

BOWLING ALONE demonstrates how this "stock of goods" including the effects of friendship, reciprocity, sympathy, trust, and integrity, become the "materials and tools" fundamental to the health of the community. Thus, emphasizing the productive nature of affiliation, social capital - a smile, a kind word, a helping hand, group participation - gets "saved," in our rolodexes or their hippocampal versions, to be used advantageously another day. Here one notes that, though little emphasized by most contemporary cheerleaders for unfettered Capitalism, Adam Smith, too, emphasized sympathy, rather than petty selfishness, as one of Capitalism's essential ingredients.

Putnam provides a vast array of empirical data documenting the productive effects of friendship and communal action on politics (Chap. 2), community involvement (Chap. 3), religious participation (Chap. 4), workplace association (Chap. 5), informal social activity (Chap. 6) and altruistic activity (Chap. 7). In any of these venues, reciprocity, honesty, and trust compose the yeast for productive social activity (Chap. 8).

Putnam's interpretation of the data convincingly indicates that some generations are equaler than others. Over the half-century leading up to the publication of Putnam's book, the combination of television, suburbanization, the changing nature of work, have been factors in the dwindling of our social "goods." But most significantly, shifts in generational norms (Chaps. 10-15), have resulted in "anticivic contagion," the substantial decline in the activities that generate social capital (Chaps. 2-8), though there are exceptions (Chap. 9). In astonishing geographic detail, Putnam graphs (Figures 80-89) the correlations between social capital and its deficits in American community life, public affairs, volunteerism, sociability and trust (Chaps. 16). These are tied quite demonstrably to costs for education and children's welfare (Chap. 17), safe and productive neighborhoods (Chap. 18), economic prosperity (Chap. 19), health and happiness (Chap 20), and participatory democracy (Chap. 21). In the last two chapters (Chaps. 23, 24) he details what might be done to replenish social capital and "walking the walk" has introduced websites and seminars promoting social capital under the auspices of Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Putnam recognizes other earlier uses of the phrase "social capital" with varying degrees of specificity, tracing its earliest use to L. J. Hanifan, a state superintendent of rural schools in 1916:

"good will, fellowship, sympathy, and social intercourse...[result in] an accumulation of social capital which may immediately satisfy [the individuals] needs and which may bear a social potentiality sufficient to the substantial improvement of living conditions in the whole community."

Others who have used the phrase include Jane Jacobs, who applied it to the health of neighborhoods (The Death and Life of Great American Cities, 1961), and Pierre Bourdieu who emphasized it in the contexts of social competition (The forms of capital. In: John G. Richardson (ed.): Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education. New York: Greenwood Press 1986). But, Putnam goes further than any earlier writer, applying the concept to the communal health of a nation.

The concept of social capital, and particularly Putnam's rendering of it, is not without its critics whose objections are on semantic, philosophical, empirical and policy terms. Andy Blunden objects to its quantification and to the causal ambiguity of correlations that Putnam uses to support his inferences, though I think Putnam does not dismiss the likelihood of hidden variables that might be influencing the more apparent ones. The eminent sociologist Alejandro Portes takes up similar issues (Social Capital: Its Origins and Applications in Modern Sociology, Annu. Rev. Sociol. 1998. 24:1.24), though, in fairness, his critique was on Putnam's earlier work in this area and BOWLING ALONE effectively addresses some of them. Theda Skocpol tellingly argues that Putnam's approach essentially blames the victim (cf. Unraveling From Above, The American Prospect no. 25 (March-April 1996): 20-25.).

The critiques notwithstanding, Putnam's work has been enormously influential even beyond the halls of academe, insinuating itself into state of the union addresses (Clinton, 1995) and the current presidential campaign (bridging v. bonding capital). For more specifics about how social capital has interrelated effects up and down the conceptual ladder from the genome to community life see A. R. Cellura's The Genomic Environment and Niche-Experience (Cedar Springs Press, 2006).

This is a powerhouse study on a subject that would hardly seem worthy of such attention to many Americans. However, most people, other than extremists and misanthropes, probably have nagging worries about America's plummeting levels of public participation, volunteerism, and civic engagement. This concept of "social capital" is Putnam's specialty. The reasons for America's collapsing social capital are many and varied, and Putnam takes us on an intricately considered and very heavily researched study into the causes and effects of this phenomenon. You are unlikely to see a more intensively documented and supported study than this. Like a true scientist Putnam knows that there are no easy answers, and that there are highly varied causes and effects. Also in a manner quite refreshing for social observation treatises of this type, Putnam freely admits that he doesn't have all the answers, that the data is sometimes missing or contradictory, and consistently invites readers to form their own conclusions.
Critics of this book often fail to see the big picture and tend to dwell on doubtful statistics in that old can't-see-the-forest-for-the-trees fashion. There are many examples of questionable stats in the book. One that I noticed was the contention in Chapter 6 that sit-down restaurants are decreasing in number. Putnam backs up the claim with data published by the National Restaurant Association, but that organization may be interested in downplaying their numbers in return for business opportunities. There are many doubtful examples like this, but in the long run Putnam's argument is an incredibly persuasive one. He convincingly demonstrates that time and financial pressures, suburban sprawl, mass communications, political ideology, and especially TV are all culprits in the problem; with appreciable effects on crime, education, voting, public health, and even neighborly politeness.
Putnam's data-intensive writing style and huge mountains of documentation and evidence lead to some readability issues, especially repetitive information overload. But in the end, it is very hard to escape his conclusions about the worrisome decline of American social capital, and he wraps up the book with great examples of why we should care. When you're done with this illuminating book, don't vegetate in front of the TV, but go out and do something for your community. [~doomsdayer520~]

This book is a useful tome for those attempting to invigorate their communities or organizations. The usefulness rests in the fact that Putnam illustrates the extent to which group membership provides positive benefits for society and community members. What Putnam argues is that being a member of civic groups and associations will provide participants with the skills needed to develop greater political efficacy. This is a good thing, but it can only come if individuals possess the time to devote to joining clubs. Putnam even argues that women leaving home is part of the reason we see fewer clubs and groups. The lesson of this book is that we should encourage membership and to make the environment more favorable to such participation. Anyway, the book is well read and not to over written. It is as enjoyable as a political book can be. ;)

It takes until the last (24th) chapter to learn about it, but there exists a group of thirty-three "accomplished thinkers" organized by Harvard's Kennedy School of Government to think about how to put American society back together again.
I became an apartment-dweller, a transient, in 1975 while I was in college and remained one until I bought my first house in 1997. Since then, I have been surprised to find how disengaged I am from my neighbors and how difficult it is to form the types of neighborhood relationships that sustained me and enhanced my family when I was a kid.
During my college and grad school days, even as a transient, I thought I was witnessing a withdrawal by my fellow Americans from the ordinary behaviors of good citizenship and mutual respect. I have been especially aware, for instance, that shoppers will now go not even five feet to place a shopping cart in a parking lot rack. They leave them instead to occupy parking spaces and be windblown to dent other people's cars.
In Robert Putnam's June 2000 book, Bowling Alone - The Collapse and Revival of American Community, the author presents an exhaustive study of Americans' withdrawal from community and civic life since the mid-20th century. It is certainly a book for social scientists, with over a thousand references (I couldn't count them), but I am not a social scientist and the book fully engaged me, too.
Bowling Alone (the title comes from the fact that bowling is at an all-time high while league bowling is declining) is presented in four parts - and I paraphrase - what is happening?, why is it happening?, what does it matter?, and what do we do about it?
The first, "Trends in Civic Engagement and Social Capital," sounds bookish but contains alarming revelations about just how superficial we are in our public participation. For instance, we belong to do-gooder organizations, but we do not meet with our fellow do-gooders in local groups. Instead, we put a check in the mail - usually to whichever organization has maintained the steadiest bombardment of junk mail solicitations. As Putnam says in these chapters, "Citizenship by proxy is an oxymoron." Trends in religious participation are also interesting: attendance at "mainstream" churches is down while churches at the ends of the spectrum have experienced gains - and a primary characteristic of the fringe churches is a disengagement from society rather than becoming a part of the community fabric for civic improvement.
The "why" section of the book comprises good, solid, well-referenced research. I have written in the op-ed section of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Dec 1999) that I suspected anonymity (I blamed air-conditioning) and the geographic mobility requirements of modern work. Putnam says I am right about anonymity (but that it is television, not air-conditioning that is responsible) and wrong about mobility (it would seem to make sense, but our troubles started long after we became as mobile as we are today).
What does it matter? Our diminished sense of community degrades education, safe neighborhoods, economic prosperity, personal health and happiness, and the health of our democracy. For instance, would you guess that joining a club statistically will improve your health as much as quitting smoking?
Finally, what are we to do? In these final two chapters, I learned some American history about the Gilded Age (leading up to 1900) and the Progressive Era (1900-1930's) and found that the same concerns about societal declines arose and society eventually found answers (although, it seems that it took the unifying influences of world wars to knit us together to work for the common good.)
Dr. Putnam, a Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University, shares with us some of the suggestions of the Saguaro Seminar thinkers mentioned at the top of this review. I predict that one hundred years hence, social analysts will be trying to figure out what went wrong in America in the 21st century and they will be citing Putnam's book early and often.
This book is a good read, conversational in tone, and should be of particular interest to anyone trying to figure out why young people are shooting each other in schoolyards these days.

This book is a compendium of research concerning the decline of social activities in the United States over the last part of the Twentieth Century. Putnam, a social science researcher, noted that memberships in various civic organizations was on the decline, prompting him to study the topic in greater detail. In this book, Putnam presents volumes of documentation that social capital, our social contacts and involvement with our community and government, has been on a steady decline for the past fifty years. In seeking to understand the decline, Putnam found that it is generationally linked--the intense community involvement of previous generations actually obscures the more precipitous decline in the social capital of Boomers and their offspring. Putnam goes on to investigate a number of possible reasons for the decline, finding that television viewership appears to contribute the largest identifiable influence on declining community involvement, more than sprawl or the need for both parents to work. Putnam also examines some of the consequences of the decline in social capital, from personal health to implications for neighborhood safety.

This book is extremely dense, with thousands of citations to published social science research. Putnam has done a masterful job of pulling together facts gleaned from innumerable facets of community life to present a coherent picture of how life really was better for previous generations. In his investigation of the causes of the decline of social capital, Putnam does not come across as having an agenda, as trying to vilify certain movements. Instead, he lays out the logical possibilities, then studies each one statistically to determine how much influence it has on the final picture. Putnam's results are quite disturbing because they document how our supply of social capital is dramatically decreasing, but his research also suggest steps that individuals and community leaders can take to encourage community involvement.

As I read through Putnam's book, I was repeatedly impressed by how thoroughly researched his points were. Bowling Alone has over 100 figures and tables dispersed throughout, and while that would be considered an "overly academic" death knell for most books, this book comes out as both interesting and highly readable. The points are backed up by hard facts and Putnam is very careful to state which opinions are his own as opposed to some other source's. His style of reasoning and argument always includes an examination of possible alternative explanations, which is something all non-fiction writing of this type should require.

In this book you will learn a good deal about the advantages and disadvantages of community groups and why America -- as a society -- has drifted away from the close-knit communities of the 1950s and early 60s. Bowling Alone is one of those rare books that has a little bit of everything: sociology, psychology, urban planning, political commentary, and good old-fashioned statistical analysis. And these topics are all covered in a way that bring the social phenomena to light without getting bogged down in the numbers. Putnam's book is truly an impressive piece of work.

Robert Putnam's 1995 essay on civic disengagement in the United States ("Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital," Journal of Democracy 6 [January 1995]: 65-78) piqued the interest of conservatives and neoliberals alike en route to becoming perhaps the most discussed social science article of the twentieth century. Conservatives read Putnam's essay as a demonstration of the crowding out of private civic and humanitarian organizations by the rising tide of government social programs. Neoliberals, in contrast, saw an opportunity to advance public welfare by using government to promote programs geared toward rebuilding the social-capital infrastructure in the United States, which Putnam argued had depreciated during the last third of the twentieth century.
Conservatives are unlikely to be persuaded by the data and arguments Putnam has marshaled in this book-length version of the essay, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. Neoliberals, on the other hand, will find reasons to rejoice, not only because of the book's new material and policy prescriptions but also because attempts to meet the challenges Putnam has posed would revitalize the flagging communitarian social program. Whether or not scholars and policy analysts accept Putnam's analysis and conclusions, they must be prepared to deal with the points Putnam has raised because his book promises to have cachet in policy circles for a long time.
The book's central theme is simply stated: "For the first two-thirds of the twentieth century a powerful tide bore Americans into ever deeper engagement in the life of their communities, but a few decades ago-silently, without warning-that tide reversed and we were overtaken by a treacherous rip current. Without at first noticing, we have been pulled apart from one another and from our communities over the last third of the century" (p. 27).
The book is organized in four major sections. In the first, Putnam describes trends in civic disengagement that he claims have dissipated social capital in recent years. "[T]he broad picture is one of declining membership in community organizations. During the last third of the twentieth century formal membership in organizations in general has edged downward by perhaps 10-20 percent. Most important, active involvement in clubs and other voluntary associations has collapsed at an astonishing rate, more than halving most indexes of participation within barely a few decades" (p. 63).
In the book's second section, Putnam identifies the perceived causes of this deterioration-causes that he argues have left "Americans today feel[ing] vaguely and uncomfortably disconnected," a conclusion based in part on social surveys showing that "we wish to live in a more civil, more trustworthy, more collectively caring community" (p. 402).
In the book's third section, Putnam identifies the negative consequences of America's declining social capital for education and children's welfare, safe and productive neighborhoods, economic prosperity, health and happiness, and democracy. He admits that too much and the wrong kind of social capital also can have deleterious consequences-"too much fraternity is bad for liberty and equality" (p. 351), leading, for example, to an increase of organized crime-but he believes that on balance the benefits of copious social capital broadly outweigh those costs.
Putnam concludes the book by recounting the social movements that characterized the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era-political epochs that gave rise to the stock of social capital that Putnam argues dissipated during the last third of the twentieth century.
The book, however, offers no systematic demonstration that the benefits of its utopian agenda would outweigh the costs of "using government" to bring it into being. Any attempt to establish that conclusion almost certainly would fail: universal happiness and well-being have yet to flow from utopian social policies. The fact that private and public life presents a series of trade-offs fully escapes Putnam's purview: his policy prescription has superficial appeal (to the extent that it appeals at all) because he almost entirely ignores the costs of bringing it about. Consequently, no offhand proposal is too outlandish. For example, "why not [require] employer-provided space and time for civic discussion groups and service clubs?" (p. 407). The correct answer to questions of this sort is widely known, though not frequently acknowledged: because the market process resolves such issues in total far more efficiently than does legislative fiat.
Economic theory teaches that individuals seek to maximize the expected utility they can derive from their environment. "Social organization" is merely a composite view of individuals interacting in ways that enhance their separate private utilities. Coercing individuals to live and interact differently through the compulsions of law, as Putnam proposes, cannot increase aggregate social welfare; doing so would merely move most individuals away from their revealed optima while increasing the far-reaching disutility that is an unavoidable cost of coercive public policy. Putnam's proposals ultimately rest on the weakest and most potentially dangerous implication of the Standard Social Science Model that an omnipotent state pursuing normative policy ends can and indeed ought to treat individuals like sheep.

Robert Putnam has written one of the most important books I have read in a long, long time. When was the last time you called a friend or associate and proposed going out to a ballgame or a show only to be rebuffed because there was a game on TV that night? And how many times has that sort of thing happened to you? "Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community" discusses the reasons why so many people have become isolated and out of touch with family and friends.

The reasons are myriad. Obviously, the aforementioned "boob tube" is a major contributing factor. But as Putnam discusses there are so many more reasons. The go-go 24 hour a day economy has robbed us all of much of our leisure time. And even when we do manage to get some time off everyone else we know is probably working. In addition, our society's seemingly endless quest for "personal fulfillment" has made people withdraw into themselves. Given all of the choices we are now presented with in media and other activities, there are fewer and fewer common experiences we can share at the watercooler.

Putnam also laments the decline of the various fraternal organizations that sprang up in the first quarter of the twentieth century. Groups like the Elks, the Knights of Columbus and the VFW are all struggling to survive. No one joins groups like these anymore and that is really a shame. Our communities are the big losers because the services provided by these organizations have either disappeared or have had to be assumed by the government.

"Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community" is an extremely thought provoking book. Robert Putnam certainly diagnoses the problems and offers up some thoughtful solutions. But these problems are not easily solved. If the events of 9/11 did not wake us all up then one has to wonder if anything will. Very highly recommended!

The ideas and insights found in Robert Putnam's "Bowling Alone" have now gained widespread currency and appeal thanks to Malcolm Gladwell, who popularized Putnam's arguments in his New Yorker articles and in his book "Outliers." Simply put, the book argues persuasively with statistics that Americans are becoming civically disengaged, a trend with unfortunate consequences to the republic's political health as well as the individual welfare and happiness of Americans. Looking at statistical evidence, Putnam thinks there are two main culprits: television and generational shift. In World War II, Americans came together, and it was a sense of struggle that endowed a habit of civic engagement within the Greatest Generation. The Vietnam War, the 60s counter-revolution, Watergate, and the ending of the mandatory military draft all helped in their own way to erode the sense of civic responsibility among Americans.

"Bowling Alone" was an urgent call when it was first published in the 1990s, and if anything -- thanks to the rise of the Internet and Facebook -- its message is even more timely and urgent today.

The concept of "Social Capital," as it is discussed in Bowling Alone (Putnam 2001) is an attempt to quantify the loss of community connectedness that has been happening over the years. Putnam draws his title from the fact that in recent years people have become more likely to bowl alone than in more social leagues.
What is striking about the idea of Social Capital is its relevance. Public managers, especially those trying to garner public participation, will run headfirst into the phenomenon discussed in the book. According to Putnam's work on Social Capital, in the future, the Executive Director of a non-profit will have increasing difficulty soliciting volunteers to become involved in the non-profit's mission ((Putnam 1995). This is alarming because volunteers are a common resource such agencies turn to out of limited resources.
More than just being a warning of things to come, Social Capital gives public managers a framework from which to define the problem and seek strategies to deal with it. Knowing why people are less inclined to volunteer their time to a non-profit lets the Executive Director see the problem for what it is and start to think of creative, targeted strategies that account for social capital and help recruit new volunteers.
Furthermore, by taking into account Social Capital and seeking new ways to encourage civic participation, we do exactly what needs to be done in order to reinforce the very community we are trying to serve.

Putnam's "Bowling Alone" is really a must read for anyone concerned about the future of American society. He convincingly demonstrates how America has lost much of the "social glue" that has allowed us to prosper in the past. He then goes on to demonstrate how this loss of social capital has affected us both individually and collectively in terms of poorer health, higher rates of suicide and depression, less effective schools, less honesty and trust within communities, urban decay, etc. He presents an overwhelming amount of data to support his claim and after completing "Bowling Alone" it is very hard to argue with his conclusions.
If the book has one disappointment, it is the comparitively small portion of the text that deals with possible solutions to this problem of social capital. I found the book profoundly depressing because it seemed that his proposed solutions were far too modest to deal with the problem.
It is also important to mention that "Bowling Alone" is writen in a fairly engaging style (thank God) so it is far easier reading than you might think for a largely acedemic work. Putnam knows how to write in a way that includes the reader in his investigation. I highly recommend this book.

Robert Putnam's "Bowling Alone" is a provocative and intriguing examination of the increasing isolation in the United States. Such isolation is visible, even to those unacquainted with Putnam's work. At his best Putnam takes a deep look into how the demographics have changed, including a lengthy exploration into historical and cultural factors. For example, people are living farther away, and spending more time commuting. Putnam offers some compelling explanations for why we are ostensibly more selfish today than in the past.

Putnam draws parallels between the Progressive Era and today, finding similarities between the fear of technological change then and today, ultimately concluding that technology didn't hinder social capital. Moreover, Putnam seems fairly certain the internet will bring people closer together than apart. There would be no problem if it weren't for the fact that Putnam attributes television to playing a major role in social isolation. He also overstates the role of social capital in reducing crime. If isolation is as influential as Putnam claims it is, shouldn't we also expect to see higher crime in the exurbs? Finally, this book at times read more like a nostalgia for the 1950's with the cliché curmudgeon-like attitude that later generations aren't like his (or his parents).

This is an impressive book, and one that takes some time to work through with its 544 pages, including close to 100 pages of small print footnotes and tables. However, it's worth the time. Putnam's thesis is that Americans have become disconnected from one another. The book is divided into three sections: first, he demonstrates disconnection; second, he speculates on why it happened; and third, he proposes some solutions. And the sections are valuable in that order.
In the first section, he amasses a mountain of statistics, drawn from association memberships, academic papers, and even market research (finally market research gets some respect) to prove his basic point - Americans spend less time together, both formally and informally. Not only is club membership down, but Americans today don't talk by phone or even go on picnics together as often as before. His evidence here is clear and convincing.
The second section is much weaker. Putnam has demonstrated his point about disconnection well, and has shown reasonably good evidence that it is a generational disconnect - i.e., people didn't change their behavior, younger people simply behave differently - and has shown that the turning point was the Sixties. And what went on in the Sixties? The answer positively flaunts itself psychedelically - except to Putnam. He ignores the whole phenomenon of the youth counterculture, merely mentioning that it provided an opporunity for friendships. The Vietnam War receives only a casual mention or two. Are Americans still suffering from the long-term effects of conflicts which tore apart families, friends, and society? This is such an astounding omission that one cannot help asking where Putnam himself was. He is equally dismissive of the "new federalism", which, by taking away control from local governments and centralizing it in Washington, D.C., made participation in local affairs much less relevant and led directly to the huge Washington-based lobbying organizations that so dismay him. He doesn't pay much attention to the growth of welfare, which eliminated the reason for existence of many charitable organizations and simultaneously provided many individuals (especially women)who might otherwise have volunteered with well-paying jobs. He mentions the increased number of lawyers, but not the strain put on even the smallest organizations by lawsuits and insurance. He does mention, but only to dismiss feminism - this even though women were specifically advised by feminists to refuse to volunteer as the first step in their liberation. He is equally dismissive of civil rights, and the backlash against it.
What then does he hold responsible? He falls back on two old standbys - cars and television. The first even Putnam cannot seem to provide any evidence for - there is not a single survey showing that non-drivers are more socially involved than drivers. The best he can do is show that volunteering is related to commute time - but since commuters by public transit frequently have longer transit times, even this argument turns against him. And the "civic generation" of the Fifties that he so admires was not anti-car - in fact, they were the ones who drove tailfin Chevys and built the Interstate. On television he is on safer ground - here the evidence is all on his side.
These weaknesses carry over into the third section. After all, if TV and cars are responsible, surely the thing to do is destroy, restrict, or ban them? But while the thought of throwing TVs off the Golden Gate Bridge or demonstrators racing through mall parking lots torching SUVS has a certain appeal, Putnam eschews such suggestions - possibly somebody pointed out to him that East Germany and apartheid-era South Africa (to name 2 societies which did restrict both) are not exactly desirable role models. Instead, he would like to start a new political movement - he doesn't say "party" - along the lines of the Progressive Party of the early 1900s. But what would this movement advocate? As Putnam himself admits, if what is desirable is a society in which people do their own thing and leave others alone, then there is a lot to be said for disconnection. Ignoring undesirable neighbors beats burning crosses on their front lawn. But merely getting together to talk and get warm fuzzies from one another's presence is not enough for anything except a new age encounter group. Yet Putnam gives us no idea of where he wants his movement to go on specific issues. One might as well call up one's neighbors and friends and organize a picnic.
Nevertheless, this is a valuable and important book. Putnam may not have much sense of the past or future, but he has demonstrated well that there is a problem in the present, and has thrown the prestige of Harvard behind opening discussion on this issue. He has, in old-fashioned terms, performed a valuable public service. Those wishing to join the debate will want to take time to read this book carefully - including all those tables and footnotes.

Anyone who cares about the future of the United States must read this book. Robert Putnam has amassed an amazing amount of data and--perhaps even more amazingly--has presented it in an exceedingly readable and accessible way. He traces the decline of community in the US and the impact that the passing of the "long generation" is having and will continue to have on our civil life. Though some will dispute specifics, it is hard to argue with the overall thrust of his findings, and he at least has data to support what he says, unlike many pundits today who make sweeping generalizations based on little more than a few personal observations, anecdotes, or feelings. We can wish that Putnam had put more into his recommendations at the end of the book, but perhaps that amplification awaits the sequel. This minor quibble in no way is intended to detract from the masterful job he has done in this book and the genuine contribution he has made to an important discussion as we enter the new millennium.

Far more interesting than I expected a book on sociology could be -- even after having read the glowing reviews.
Putnam explores how a variety of factors -- television, urban sprawl, declining organizational membership, etc. -- have shaped American society. The book offers a lot to think about, a good deal of which is both personal and immediate.
At the end of the book, I find myself contemplating three topics. First, the implications of the decline in social capital, in particular whether it is reversible; while I can see the theoretical possiblity of increasing social capital, I can't at this point see any likely catalysts on the horizon. Second, the implications of my own lifestyle choices, specifically how to most time-effectively improve my contributions to social capital. And finally, the generational differences in attitudes toward the purpose and value of social engagement -- which apparently are much more profound than I would have expected.
While the book makes few suggestions for how to remedy the situation, it does offer this: a number of really interesting observations and correlations to use as conversation starters.

Way too full of statistics and other sociological data for my tastes but when it points in the direction I agree with, like any old ideologue it's hard not to plug it.

The book is about how community activity and activism has fallen dramatically in the past fifty years, beginning with the baby boomers generation, and how my generation has only continued the slide. The title comes from the decline in bowling leagues to bowling merely when time allows.

A lot of what Putnam blames is TV (curse you infernal tube, err screen) in sucking up time with only passive reaction. How pretty much every other activity requires an active response and that this has caused people to stop caring.

He also discusses how sports have become far more spectator than participatory, allowing for more tv watching.

The difficulty he runs into is that, though published in 2000, the internet was not adequetely advanced and so is not adequetely covered. For it is a physically passive activity sans porn that can be menatally rigorous or passive due to the desires of the participent. But it also has engaged more people in a new pseudo conversation than ever existed before. A conversation without bounds of physical place or honest presence which allows for great deception but also great forthrightness.

It is absolutely packed with statistics so for those inclined to that method of persuation it could be quite successful, but merely on the sheer breadth of topics discussed it is worth the read.