Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community

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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


From Publishers Weekly
"If you don't go to somebody's funeral, they won't come to yours," Yogi Berra once said, neatly articulating the value of social networks. In this alarming and important study, Putnam, a professor of sociology at Harvard, charts the grievous deterioration over the past two generations of the organized ways in which people relate to one another and partake in civil life in the U.S. For example, in 1960, 62.8% of Americans of voting age participated in the presidential election, whereas by 1996, the percentage had slipped to 48.9%. While most Americans still claim a serious "religious commitment," church attendance is down roughly 25%-50% from the 1950s, and the number of Americans who attended public meetings of any kind dropped 40% between 1973 and 1994. Even the once stable norm of community life has shifted: one in five Americans moves once a year, while two in five expect to move in five years. Putnam claims that this has created a U.S. population that is increasingly isolated and less empathetic toward its fellow citizens, that is often angrier and less willing to unite in communities or as a nation. Marshaling a plentiful array of facts, figures, charts and survey results, Putnam delivers his message with verve and clarity. He concludes his analysis with a concise set of potential solutions, such as educational programs, work-based initiatives and funded community-service programs, offering a ray of hope in what he perceives to be a dire situation. Agent, Rafe Sagalyn. 3-city tour; 20-city radio satellite tour. (June) Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
Putnam (Stanfield Professor of International Peace, Harvard) probes American history to identify, interpret, and weigh the forces influencing the major drop in civic involvement that characterized American society in the last third of the 20th century. Buttressing his arguments with a wide range of resources, references, and statistics from government, academic, and commercial sources, he explores the roles of generational, social, and technological factors as they relate to the dwindling of our nation's social capital. Putnam argues that "[the level of] social connectedness matters to our lives in the most profound way." How to respond to its current nadir? Putnam finds striking parallels between the situation today and the declining levels of social interaction in the late 1800s. He cites the rejuventating waves of change and reform generated during the Progressive Era, which stemmed that earlier decline, and suggests that a comparable burst of social inventiveness and political reform could activate the much-needed rebuilding of civic involvement and social connection in our time. This substantive and stimulating work is highly recommended for academics and a thoughtful general public audience.---Suzanne W. Wood, SUNY Coll. of Technology at Alfred Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From The Industry Standard
In the 1950s, my dad was a mason, belonged to a synagogue, played gin rummy with friends, read the newspaper every day, helped run the campaign of a candidate for county sheriff and voted in virtually every election. In sociological terms, my dad had a lot of social capital - a rich network of formal and informal relationships that were personally and professionally beneficial - and he was engaged in civic and political affairs. In short, he was just the sort Alexis de Tocqueville had in mind when he spoke of the American propensity for "forever forming associations" - and he wasn't alone.As Robert Putnam shows in his new book, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, my dad was a product of the most civically engaged generation of the 20th century. But as he and others of the civic generation have passed from the scene, their children and their children's children have become increasingly disconnected from civic life and social networks. Not only are they voting less - nationwide turnout is down by about 25 percent since 1960 - but they are also far less engaged in civic and religious organizations, community projects, having friends over for dinner, card clubs and myriad other group activities.In fact, as Putnam reported in a widely discussed article in the Journal of Democracy five years ago, the disconnection even extends to bowling. Putnam discovered that although more Americans than ever are bowling, league bowling has plummeted by more than 40 percent since 1980. Hence, the book's title.Putnam is at his most persuasive in quantifying this collapse and speculating about its major causes. In part, this represents a response to critics of his earlier article who believed he had vastly overstated his case. Putnam has greatly expanded his research with the help of some 50 assistants and multimillion-dollar support from a who's who of major liberal foundations, including Carnegie, Ford, Rockefeller and the Pew Charitable Trusts.The result is a fascinating analysis of decades of social science and market research - some contemporary, some ferreted out of dusty archives - that measures virtually every aspect of American life, from how many picnics and softball games we participate in each year to the number of public meetings we attend and petitions we sign.Based on this research, Putnam argues that the hollowing out of our democratic infrastructure began suddenly in the late 1960s, when the first generation raised on television reached adulthood. The privatizing effects of television, Putnam estimates, have caused about 25 percent of the decline in social and civic engagement.To a lesser degree, Putnam also cites the rise of two-career families, suburban sprawl and the resulting increase in commuting, all of which siphon off time, energy and interest in social activities. Combine these factors with devastating demographic momentum, where decreasing engagement by parents begets even less involvement on the part of their children, and the result is a very slippery slope indeed.To all of this demographic lamentation, one might conceivably respond: So what? If people want to bowl alone, let them. It's no business of ours. But the trend nonetheless has disturbing implications, as the link between social capital (the personal) and civic engagement (the political) is a strong one. The lesser known continuation of de Tocqueville's observation on Americans' habits of association is that "in democratic countries knowledge of how to combine is the mother of all other forms of knowledge; on its progress depends that of all the others."A democracy without this knowledge is a democracy without citizens, a disturbing oxymoron. As Putnam shows, social capital and civic engagement, or their lack, measurably affect public health, economic prosperity and social justice. In education, for example, parental involvement in the schools is now seen by many researchers as a key to students' success. But as Putnam observes, "The decline in PTA membership over the past several decades reflects many parents' disengagement from their children's schooling." In a state-by-state comparison, Putnam presents an intriguing, if not conclusive, sketch showing that states such as Vermont, Minnesota and Washington with relatively higher levels of social capital and engagement also have, other things being equal, less violent crime, higher educational performance, better health and higher personal income.Short of mandatory bowling league membership, how can Americans reconnect to community life? Technology might be one way. Putnam says, "No sector of American society will have more influence on the ... state of our social capital than the electronic media and especially the Internet." Although he's concerned about the digital divide and computer-generated anonymity and isolation, he also is hopeful about the possibility of "hitherto unthinkable forms of democratic deliberation and community building - like citywide citizen debates about local issues or joint explorations of local history." Other solutions offered by Putnam include encouraging new, grassroots social and civic organizations, prodding employers to make workplaces "family-friendly and community-congenial," and greatly improving civic education in our schools.Although this book is already long, one misses a more developed discussion by Putnam of such proposals. One wonders, for example, whether Putnam really believes that low-income workers in particular will be connected to civic and political participation in the absence of a revitalized labor movement. He seems to imply that such a connection can be created through employers' benevolence and enlightenment instead of workers' organized pressure and solidarity. And, yes, a national campaign to make civic education a top priority in public schools is a worthy goal. But getting from here to there when civic education has been so devalued is much easier said than done.Nonetheless, this book deserves a wide audience. It deals seriously and imaginatively with one of the most urgent problems of our time. Putnam is an optimist who finds inspiration in the reform spirit of the turn-of-the-century progressive era, a period when American society was also experiencing revolutionary technological changes and growing disparities in wealth and power.It was a time that reflected de Tocqueville's observation that the great privilege of Americans is not that they were more enlightened than other people, but that they had the capacity to correct mistakes that they commit from time to time. Putnam's work reminds us of this important tradition.Sanford D. Horwitt is a writer and president of the nonpartisan Mikva Challenge Grant Foundation, which sponsors civic-engagement programs for young people.


The New York Times Book Review, Margaret Talbot
Now Putnam has produced a book that attempts to answer his critics and to amplify his case. And in many ways he succeeds admirably.


From Booklist
Putnam laments the decline in the kind of informal social institutions--bridge clubs, bowling leagues, charity leagues, etc.--that were once the glue for many American communities. In a detailed, well-documented book, he examines how Americans have expended their "social capital," the good will and social intercourse that constitute basic neighborliness, to such an extent that they feel civic malaise despite economic prosperity. As social groups decline, so do civic, religious, and work groups. But Putnam sees trends of both collapse and renewal in civic engagement and seeks to avoid "simple nostalgia." Indeed, he also examines the darker side of social capital, including the compulsion to promote homogeneity. He cites generational differences, demographic changes, technology, and increased mobility as reasons for the decline in social organizations, but he notes trends in technology that spur the reformulating of social groups as well as growth in such mass-membership organizations as the American Association of Retired Persons. Finally, he suggests how the nation can reengage citizens and improve its investment in social capital. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


From Kirkus Reviews
A longer and much improved version of Putnam’s controversial 1995 Journal of Democracy article of the same name, this is an important work that is likely to be the center of much debate. Books of sociological insight as readable and significant as David Reisman’s Lonely Crowd and C. Wright Mills’s Power Elite come along seldom. Putnam’s work belongs in their company. This is partly because Putnam (Making Democracy Work, not reviewed) avoids the language of academic sociology and writes prose that most readers will find appealing. But, more importantly, Putnam’s ideas have a weight and carry implications that will resonate with scholars and laymen alike. Putnam is concerned with “social capital” (i.e., the institutions, practices, behavior, and attitudes that create and sustain human communities). The evidence that he has amassed—from surveys of bowling leagues and book groups to data on religious and civic participation—shows without doubt that American social capital has recently fallen far, and that the bonds connecting Americans to one another have eroded sharply in the last half-century. For all the book’s likely impact, however, Putnam is stronger at discovering reality than explaining it. He doesn’t tell us why he and other social thinkers believe that being connected is better than going it alone. He also fails to explore the possibility that the causes of social disconnectedness lie as much in changing personal cultural attitudes (the subject of social psychology) as in external practices and institutions (the stuff of sociology). And Putnam’s inspiring and brave call for renewed civic inventiveness, while appealing, can be no substitute for solid ideas as to what social policies should be enacted and what individuals might do to recreate social capital. Nevertheless, all those who were previously skeptical of Putnam’s claims will now have to confront the overwhelming force of this exhaustive and carefully argued study. A major work of social research. -- Copyright © 2000 Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Review
Julia Keller Chicago Tribune A learned and clearly focused snapshot of a crucial moment in American history.


Book Description
Once 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.


About the Author
Robert D. Putnam is the Peter and Isabel Malkin Professor of Public Policy at Harvard. He is currently president of the American Political Science Association, fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the author of nine previous books. He lives in Lexington, Massachusetts.


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Bowling Alone is a tour-de-force. Robert Putnam has amassed an impressive array of evidence for his original and powerful thesis on the decline of social capital and civic engagement in the past several decades. This thought-provoking book will stimulate huge academic and national public policy debates on the crisis of the American community.  — (William Julius Wilson, Harvard University)


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