Product Description:

Few people outside certain scholarly circles had heard the name Robert D. Putnam before 1995. But then this self-described 'obscure academic' hit a nerve with a journal article called 'Bowling Alone.' Suddenly he found himself invited to Camp David, his picture in People magazine, and his thesis at the center of a raging debate. In a nutshell, he argued that civil society was breaking down as Americans became more disconnected from their families, neighbors, communities, and the republic itself. The organizations that gave life to democracy were fraying. Bowling became his driving metaphor. Years ago, he wrote, thousands of people belonged to bowling leagues. Today, however, they're more likely to bowl alone:

Television, two-career families, suburban sprawl, generational changes in values--these and other changes in American society have meant that fewer and fewer of us find that the League of Women Voters, or the United Way, or the Shriners, or the monthly bridge club, or even a Sunday picnic with friends fits the way we have come to live. Our growing social-capital deficit threatens educational performance, safe neighborhoods, equitable tax collection, democratic responsiveness, everyday honesty, and even our health and happiness.

The conclusions reached in the book Bowling Alone rest on a mountain of data gathered by Putnam and a team of researchers since his original essay appeared. Its breadth of information is astounding--yes, he really has statistics showing people are less likely to take Sunday picnics nowadays. Dozens of charts and graphs track everything from trends in PTA participation to the number of times Americans say they give 'the finger' to other drivers each year. If nothing else, Bowling Alone is a fascinating collection of factoids. Yet it does seem to provide an explanation for why 'we tell pollsters that we wish we lived in a more civil, more trustworthy, more collectively caring community.' What's more, writes Putnam, 'Americans are right that the bonds of our communities have withered, and we are right to fear that this transformation has very real costs.' Putnam takes a stab at suggesting how things might change, but the book's real strength is in its diagnosis rather than its proposed solutions. Bowling Alone won't make Putnam any less controversial, but it may come to be known as a path-breaking work of scholarship, one whose influence has a long reach into the 21st century. --John J. Miller

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: 4.09 out of 5 stars

Rating:

- Good Observations, Bad Conclusions
Putnam's research on the decline of social interaction is extensive, and the book is interesting to read. In Bowling Alone's first nine chapters are graphs showing the chrononical trends for every activity from card-playing to church-going. Putnam shows that Baby Boomers and Generation Xers are significantly less involved in civic activities than their parents and grandparents.

However, while Bowling Alone does a good job illustrating the loss of community involvement, the last fifteen chapters of the book, which discuss the causes of civic disengagement, and how it can be reversed, are seriously wrong. Just to start, Putnam overlooks many of the events of the last forty years. He pejoratively notes that Americans have become more individualist and distrustful of institutions, but ... Read More

Rating:

- Important Book for Nonprofit and Charity Professionals
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, ... Read More

Rating:

- Don't belive the hype
I read this book about 2 years ago for a class. It was just horrible, and I am shocked that smart people can read this and not see it for what it is. Nothing he said was realy a new idea unless it was one of the areas where he was wrong. He will bury you in 20 pages of Evidence in numbers to support his idea, but fail to notice a huge glaring fault with his logic. He basicly hopes you get so into what evidence he puts out you will not think, wait he did not even factor in X, and that destorys anything he said. My class had to ask why we even read this, as it was so bad, and evry day was basicly a hour of talking about how wrong he is. This book should only be used to show how lots of numbers can make people fail to think logicly about anything. I know people will say this is a great book, but is worthless. ... Read More

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