Rating: 
Summary: Other Possible Reasons Social Capital Has Decayed
Review: Dr. Putman's social capital destroying "suspects" (featuring TV) are solid. Here are some other candidates for future consideration: 1. Interest in genealogy/history (a.k.a. backward-temporal communities). 2. Rampant progenyism as acted out in hyper-child centricity/ kidolatry--may be associated with the fall of faith. 3. Layering on of additional very weak but still cumulatively important (and time requiring) domains of community, e.g. financial markets since we are now mostly security (stocks and/or bonds) holders and just the privatization of retirement planning in general. Maybe even some "Main-drain" from NAFTA, NATO and the general expansion of a global consciousness. 4. The increase in "homework" required to keep up to date with best pratices in a job. 5. The democratization of reading via another "screen": the affordable, pocket paperback book.
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Summary: Fascinating footnotes save this thesis
Review: At first glance, Putnam's polemic appears to reach back to the good old days, to the Time That Never Was. After I read it, I learned I was right.I don't dispute the decay of America. After all, Ozzie and Harriet have been displaced by the Sopranos as America's favorite TV family. I disagree with the writer's glorification of fraternal clubs. In 1960, a fraternal group roped me into their dark membership lodge. These were old WASP guys (White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant) who drank beer, smoked cigarettes, and told racist jokes. On weekends, they took their guns to the mountains to kill animals. Then they justified all this with token once-a-year charity work. Not my kind of life style. I was surprised to see bowling elevated to an admirable activity. I did it long enough to learn that I didn't like being indoors on a sunny afternoon, choking on second-hand smoke, listening to the bartenders clang glasses as I adjusted my rent-a-shoes. This book misses important influences. Woodstock. Communes. Raves. Rock concerts that use the largest structures on Earth. Globalization. Counter culture. Cell phones. Beepers. MTV. Cyberspace. I enjoyed the cyber bashing with terms like cyberapartheid, cyberbalkanization and cyberghetto. The writer needs to spend less time with theories and statistics and go experience a chat room. This book also misses the global social unity of the youth movement through music. The most lyrics quoted belong to Bing Crosby while the Beatles are barely mentioned. Despite my criticisms, I liked this thought provoking theory: social capital - aka - friendship. I'd suggest that the writer read Aristotle's book on Friendship and distinguish between human nature and sociological surveys. I liked the wealth of research and statistics which, unfortunately, raised more unanswered questions. For example, as a teacher I was surprised to learn that the U.S. graduated 41% of high school students in 1960 but in 1998, 82% graduated (page 186). If so, where's the decay? Why the cry for school reform? It's progress, not devolution. The fascinating footnotes gave me a way to read between the lines and draw a conclusion which is diametrically opposed to the writer's. In the first chapter, footnote 18 (page 446) referred to the killer Timothy McVeigh. In a magazine article, McVeigh implies that he hatched his bombing plot with his pals in a bowling alley. The magazine writer observed: "We would have all been better off if Mr. McVeigh had gone bowling alone." Since those last two words are the title of the book, I wonder if there was a subliminal message here. If "social capital" results in mass murder, death and destruction, who needs it?
Rating: 
Summary: Reads like it was written by a professor (it was).
Review: The author has accumulated an astounding range of statistics supporting his discovery that people in America are not as connected to each other as they used to be. (Example: people still bowl but now are less willing to join organized bowling leagues). And he uses those statistics, which makes this book slogging through repeated evidence for the same thing. The finding, based on this exhaustive statistical evidence, appears significant. But whether recognizing the problem can lead to an improvement is another question.
Rating:
Summary: Good Starting Point
Review: Putnam provides a good starting point for a conversation about the "decline" in civil society. "Decline" must be qualified, however, because while Putnam amasses intriguing evidence, I don't think that he conclusively demonstrates that society is worse than before, but does show many differences. Secondly, with such a grand undertaking, his research and analysis were bound to be incomplete and sometimes far too brief (see any of the other reviews pointing out the deficiencies in the book's research or analysis) Nevertheless, I enjoyed reading the book. It sets forth a problem and lays the groundwork for futher research and discussion. A good starting point for discussion.
Rating: 
Summary: A Must Read!
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Putnam doesn't remember the Sixties
Review: 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.
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Summary: Fascinating thesis and very well researched
Review: "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.
Rating: 
Summary: all that to say tv is bad? puh-leease
Review: disappointing. it certainly contains an impressive amount of data, yet to what end? putnam would have been more productive by looking at increasing trends rather than those in decline. it's as if he is concerned that fewer people are roller-skating without recognizing that people are roller-blading instead.
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Summary: Monumental Book for Anyone Who Is Involved With People!
Review: As an evangelical pastor, I have often been puzzled as to why so many individuals seem to be constantly discontent and virtually friendless. Putnam has offered answers to these and a whole slew of other relational questions, even if not intentionally. Putnam's thesis is that personal happiness, health, crime, SAT Scores, and the well being of our country revolve around whether or not individuals participate in groups, read the paper, and even attend church. Many influences, especially television, have disconnected Americans from one another. Putnam puts his finger on one of America's mega-problems. Although I may not agree with every iota, Putnam is definitely on the ball. This is a must read for pastors, social workers, counselors, civic servants, and anyone who cares about our nation at large!
Rating:
Summary: A Convincing and Important Work
Review: 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.
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