Bowling Alone: Revised and Updated: The Collapse and Revival of American CommunityOnce we bowled in leagues, usually after work -- but no longer. This seemingly small phenomenon symbolizes a significant social change that Robert Putnam has identified in this brilliant volume, Bowling Alone, which The Economist hailed as "a prodigious achievement." Drawing on vast new data that reveal Americans' changing behavior, Putnam shows how we have become increasingly disconnected from one another and how social structures -- whether they be PTA, church, or political parties -- have disintegrated. Until the publication of this groundbreaking work, no one had so deftly diagnosed the harm that these broken bonds have wreaked on our physical and civic health, nor had anyone exalted their fundamental power in creating a society that is happy, healthy, and safe. Like defining works from the past, such as The Lonely Crowd and The Affluent Society, and like the works of C. Wright Mills and Betty Friedan, Putnam's Bowling Alone has identified a central crisis at the heart of our society and suggests what we can do. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 81
Page 2
... turns out, have held up reasonably well.3 • One of the central arguments of the book is that both civic engagement ... turn of the twenty-first century, fewer and fewer Americans are socializing through membership organizations.5 • The ...
... turns out, have held up reasonably well.3 • One of the central arguments of the book is that both civic engagement ... turn of the twenty-first century, fewer and fewer Americans are socializing through membership organizations.5 • The ...
Page 5
... turns out to look like an inverted U-curve—starting the century at nearly the same low we experience today, growing until roughly the mid1960s, then declining again. And, even more remarkably, this essentially steady rise in America's ...
... turns out to look like an inverted U-curve—starting the century at nearly the same low we experience today, growing until roughly the mid1960s, then declining again. And, even more remarkably, this essentially steady rise in America's ...
Page 8
... turns out to have been unexpectedly powerful in explaining the “best-seller” status of the book. In fact, the lion's share of sales have been due to its inclusion as supplementary reading on the syllabi of college courses. Ironically ...
... turns out to have been unexpectedly powerful in explaining the “best-seller” status of the book. In fact, the lion's share of sales have been due to its inclusion as supplementary reading on the syllabi of college courses. Ironically ...
Page 19
... turns out to have been independently invented at least six times over the twentieth century, each time to call attention to the ways in which our lives are made more productive by social ties. The first known use of the concept was not ...
... turns out to have been independently invented at least six times over the twentieth century, each time to call attention to the ways in which our lives are made more productive by social ties. The first known use of the concept was not ...
Page 23
... turn. While we mingle together in these pursuits, we shall learn to know each other more intimately; we shall remove many of the prejudices which ignorance or partial acquaintance with each other had fostered. ... In the parties and ...
... turn. While we mingle together in these pursuits, we shall learn to know each other more intimately; we shall remove many of the prejudices which ignorance or partial acquaintance with each other had fostered. ... In the parties and ...
Contents
1 | |
15 | |
29 | |
48 | |
65 | |
Connections in the Workplace | 80 |
Informal Social Connections | 93 |
Altruism Volunteering and Philanthropy | 116 |
Education and Childrens Welfare | 296 |
Safe and Productive Neighborhoods | 307 |
Economic Prosperity | 319 |
Health and Happiness | 326 |
Democracy | 336 |
The Dark Side of Social Capital | 350 |
What Is to Be Done? | 365 |
Toward an Agenda for Social Capitalists | 402 |
Reciprocity Honesty and Trust | 134 |
Against the Tide? Small Groups Social Movements and the Net | 148 |
Why? | 183 |
Mobility and Sprawl | 204 |
Technology and Mass Media | 216 |
From Generation to Generation | 247 |
What Killed Civic Engagement? Summing Up | 277 |
So What? with the assistance of Kristin A Goss | 285 |
Has the Internet Reversed the Decline | 415 |
Measuring Social Change | 447 |
Sources for Figures and Tables | 457 |
The Rise and Fall of Civic and | 469 |
notes | 477 |
the story behind this book | 545 |
index | 555 |
Common terms and phrases
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