This is a book that I definitely cited in multiple papers throughout college, but didn’t actually read until I joined a book club that chose to read it in full. I’m glad that I finally did read it, although probably could have stopped after section 2 (out of 5) and gotten just as much out of it. The book is thoroughly researched and makes the pretty uncontroversial case that American life would be better off with more community ties—conceptualizing “community” as religious life, traditional civic organizations such as the Rotary Club, NAACP, Boy and Girl Scouts, etc., employment-based networks, as well as informal social ties. However, this definition of community is limited and does not fully consider the possibility that new forms of social capital, perhaps not immediately recognizable as such, are constantly emerging. In addition, Putnam treats the 1960s—a hyperactive time for civic engagement—as his baseline. His data does not go far back enough to rule out the possibility that civic life in the mid-20th century is actually the aberration from a quantitatively less civic norm that, Tocqueville aside, has actually been more typical throughout American history. It’s also worth remembering that this book was published in 2000, and new forms of social capital have emerged since that point. This makes the book more of a portrait of American civic life at the turn of the millennium, but not necessarily a useful way to understand our own society today.

This book examines what Putnam believes was the downfall of civic participation or civic health throughout the 20th century in America. In order to prove his points, he uses a truckload of data to illustrate what he believes was the slow but steady decline in American community participation over the century. At the same time, he uses discussions of the makeup of communities in order to transform the numbers into something personal.

He first talks about how people get involved in their communities, whether it be by meeting people in church, people collecting in organizations, people getting involved in local politics. He discusses what kind of person is more likely to be a "joiner" (my words, not his). He also breaks down what he thinks is responsible for neighbors being more distant than in years previous.

Through the whole book he’s using the numbers to hint at the fact that, at one point, America hit a peak of civic participation (it seems as though be believes this may have been in the 1960s), but then began to degrade. In fact, much of the author's language reflects that grander opinion; this book turns a change in social behavior through the 20th century into an alarmist warning signal that we may all cease talking to each other unless something drastic is done. He may as well have just written, "Mayday! Mayday!" for the book's 500 page duration.

The use of language that is normally reserved for the wipe-out of species off the face of the planet is extreme and unnecessary in this context. It suggests a trend of decay with an not-so-subtle threat of extinction and one can catch a whiff of "well, back in MY day..." Mr. Putnam, when precisely can we expect the World Wildlife Fund report about the extinction status of our communities? It's been 20 years and it has yet to hit my desk.

This is one of those books that was very important at the time and gives later readers of the book an idea of what communities looked like at the end of the last century. In fact, I'd argue that it's immensely interesting looking back at a world largely untouched by the internet to get a sense of where we all started before we were all connected at the tap of a finger.

But it's precisely the fact that the internet now exists that shatters the fears that make up this book. As I stated above, all I observed through his data was that American society was changing throughout the 20th century - and why wouldn't it? Coming out of WWII, the nation was becoming increasingly productive. Women went to work and stayed there. People began having smaller families. Things gradually began getting more expensive. Perhaps the drifting away from the Kiwanis Club isn't because people stopped caring, but because they had so many more things to occupy their time.

But right as this book was being published, the internet exploded onto the scene and now all of us are more connected than ever before. Maybe all the time burdens we all faced back in the 20th century and still do face in the 21st made us even more eager for a way to more easily connect with friends and strangers alike. But to read Putnam's book in a world where Zoom calls, multiplayer gaming, endless discussion forums, YouTube communities (and endless other examples) exist, it was hard not to chuckle at his alarmist view. Of course, hindsight is 20/20 (in 2020, heh) and we now have data that he didn't, but his decision to see change as degradation was certainly a uh...choice.

Like Silent Spring by Rachel Carson, this book was meaningful in a moment in time and may be valuable for anyone who wants to take it on as a window into said period of time, but as the data isn't all that relevant for the modern reader, this one is best read as a summary.

In  Bowling Alone,  Robert Putnam argues that America's social capital has declined precipitously since the 1960’s. He uses massive amounts of data to back up his argument – so much so that the book surpasses 400 pages of small print, and that’s not including the 100 or so pages of appendices. Putnam makes his point unequivocally, and manages to not bore the reader with the abundance of historical and quantitative evidence he presents. Maybe this is because the topic is inherently interested (at least, to me); or maybe it’s because he seems sincerely concerned with society’s fraying social fabric, and his personal investment in the issue rubs off on the reader. Probably, it’s both.

It’s upsetting, perhaps even frightening, to learn that Americans have been disengaging from their civic duties and social opportunities for the past half-century. However, Putnam asserts that there is hope for America. Our society can rebuild its social capital, just as it did in the early 20th century. This time around, though, it won’t be a simple as creating more clubs and associations and encouraging people to join them. In an era of new technology and an increasingly diverse population, we must dream up innovative ways to get Americans to connect with each other. I’m proud to work for Citizen Schools, a non-profit organization Putnam uses as an example of a modern day builder of social capital. Citizen Schools, Teach for America, City Year, and many other organizations are bringing Americans together again and strengthening communities for everyone’s benefit. I am hopeful that we can reverse the trend Putnam depicts in  Bowling Alone, and I’m making a personal pledge to be a part of the solution.

Fully deserves its reputation as a classic. Putnam makes a persuasive case for the decline of community in America, carefully detailing how generational change, television, suburban sprawl, financial insecurity, and (surprisingly) women entering the workforce contributed to our loss of “social capital.” It’s depressing that 20 years after this changed the national conversation about loneliness, the problem has only gotten worse. But as dire as things are, Putnam’s call for society to do more still inspires.

Such an important book. This whole "how to create a healthy community" kick is really turning into more than a kick for me. I'm getting pretty obsessed with the idea of preserving communities like the one I grew up in while still progressing in the ways we ought to progress as a society.

This book has two major cons: it is a little outdated and it is enormous and dense. As a result, sometimes I'd be trucking through a chapter and really just be ready for said chapter to be over. In fact, that happened with most chapters. That being said, I still gotta give it five stars simply because it was such a influential work. The number of times I've seen other authors cite this book lends it a lot of credibility, and I think that anyone who wants to do a serious survey of the literature on civil society would really be doing themselves a disservice if they missed this one.

Unlike every other five star review I've given, I'd suggest this book to almost nobody. But I would suggest that everyone familiarize themself with its ideas. Go listen to a Putnam lecture on YouTube or something

Man's got the stats that's for sure.

The mountain of data in this could be overwhelming and definitely very dry but his thoroughness painted a clear picture. American public and community life was collapsing through 80s and 90s. Though it's extremely out of date in being 25 years old (he could not have predicted the effect smartphones or social media would have in a few short years for example), a lot of it is still relevant and explains what we're experiencing now. In some ways, I think this works as a prequel to my previous read (The Anxious Generation), which focused more on social media's effects on young people because both raise alarms about community collapse and our growing isolation. I feel as though I've almost read them out of order now.

The author tried to end with a hopeful call to action about how we can reverse this trend, which, from 2025, just read as depressing because not only has none of it happened, it's gotten worse. Still it's a valuable tool for explaining why so many of us feel so disconnected and listless and gives real advice for what we can do. Kids, it's time to put down the phones and go join a community organization.

A prophetic yet well-grounded analysis of the growing sense of isolation and division in American culture. I consider this book required reading for anybody interested in building any sort of bridges in a world that wants walls instead.

The moral of the story is we should all hang out more!!!! Such an actually fascinating book about the decline of civic engagement in the US (in community organizations, volunteering, bowling leagues, local politics participation, even casual hangouts) since the late 70s. Docking 1 star bc it’s a bit repetitive but definitely recommend :)

- “most people can be trusted” - 77% of Americans agree in 1964
- “People who report the heaviest time pressure are more likely, not less likely, to participate in community projects, to attend church and club meetings, to follow politics, to spend time visiting friends, to entertain at home… Contrary to standard economic theory, one study has found that people with longer paid work hours are actually more likely to volunteer, and people with two jobs are likelier to volunteer than people with only one. … just about the only social activity that busy, harried people engage in less than other people is dinner with their families.”
- “the best predictor of which children successfully avoided [behavioral and emotional] problems was the degree to which they and their mothers were enmeshed in a supportive social network, lives in a socially supportive neighborhood, and attended church regularly.”

For all the benefits of technology, it has changed how we interact with each other in a harmful way. Robert Putnam, a Harvard professor, examines this phenomenon in Bowling Alone. Americans' proclivity to join clubs that benefit the community plummeted with the coming of the internet age. Where we used to enjoy movies together in the theater, we now stay at home; where we used to bowl in leagues, which have disappeared. Even on the street, where we could once make eye contact or say a simple hello to people you passed, people are engaged with their smart phones or i-pods, everyone in their own silo. This in turn limits the building of what Putnam calls "social capital", intangible, unquantifiable things which help individuals in the community and ultimately help the community at large. Things which build social capital may be as simple as organizing a block party, shoveling snow for your neighbor. The most powerful illustration of the power of social capital is the story from which the title of the book is drawn. There are two men in Michigan, one in his 30s, one in his 60s, one an accountant, one a retired maintenance man, one white, one black. They have NOTHING in common, no paths that cross except ONE. They both belong to a bowling league. The extraordinary thing is through this connection, one found that the other needed a kidney, and volunteered to see if he could help is fellow bowler. The social capital built by the league was exchanged by these two men. Had they been bowling alone, their lives would not have intersected.

Books that descry socioeconomic phenomena, given the datasets they analyze are chronologically limited to the publication date, suffer from the inevitability of being dated. With Bowling Alone, there’s no different outcome. Readers are dealing with a snapshot of trends captured purely for the 20th century, and that means a lack of certain critical forces are not included. Nevertheless, Bowling Alone astutely tackles what it can with a zest for rigor and an allergy to quirky yet irrelevant anecdotes.

A typical reader may expect to find personal stories and quick claims to be the norm for books outlining sociological phenomena; in my experience, that does seem to be the prosaic trend these days in non-fiction publishing. You won’t find that in Putnam’s Bowling Alone. Rather than regale us readers with anecdotes of childhood memories of neighborly love and communal finger wagging, Putnam lays on the hard data. Graphs, statistics, and tables are what fill the interstices of this novel – and that level of numeracy is what gives it weight. Sure, making it more personal may affirm certain thoughts some readers may agree with, but ones that are more critical would always ask for a systematic confirmation of anything a handful of disparate stories claim.

In the year 2000, the verdict from Putnam is in. No, it isn’t that Y2K was a huge problem, nor that Islamic terrorism would be a footnote. Rather, the verdict dwells on our social disconnections. Guilt is primarily spread out among multiple factors: compelling & easily accessible entertainment mediums, slipshod urban design that spreads everything thin, diversity of the human experience, globalist connectivity, and an undercurrent of mistrust in authority. Putnam doesn’t intend to malign those factors, but merely to correlate them to their contribution in the communal decline. After the umpteenth breakdown of associational decline in groups XYZ, the prose does tend to get a little tedious, reading more like a textbook with raw facts meant for testing grad students.

Bowling Alone will date – it was so just 10 years after publication. I don’t think we can blame Putnam for not predicting the impact of smartphones and social media (though he did give frequent mention of the inevitable forces of the Internet). Particularly with social media, the adjustments to social activism and engagement are hard to crack, let alone predict with any decent accuracy. We are in an age where the aforementioned factors brought to scrutiny in Bowling are hyperactive, yet also in a way that marshals social engagement with lightspeed timing. Repercussions of that can be seen in how the newfangled phenomena creates spatially disconnected echo chambers (the 20th century cloisters were more spatially correlated and less reverberant), some of which buffers low information, morally indignant crusaders from experiencing evidence that would contradict their perceived injustices.

Would Putnam have imagined our present digital cults flowering via miniaturized idiot boxes that fit into the palm of our hands? Would he have foreseen the decline of attention wrought by the schizophrenic methods of news delivery? Most of all, would he have any clue how quantified social engagement may actually rise due to the above, yet simultaneously degrade in quality from an influx of narcissism and dogmatism? Methinks a sequel may be in order, one titled: Protesting for Selfies: The Decline of Attention & Perspective through Digital Navel-Gazing.

Trevor Phillips OBE ,head of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, has chosen to discuss Robert D Putnam’s Bowling Alone: the Collapse and Revival of American Community , on FiveBooks (http://five-books.com) as one of the top five on his subject - Equality, saying that:

“…In the half million interviews compiled for this book, they found that people in American society are less connected, they do fewer things together, they don’t sign petitions. Where they used to go bowling in leagues they now go bowling alone. This fragmentation of society that Putnam describes is becoming more severe because of technology making people more alienated from each other..…”.


The full interview is available here: http://thebrowser.com/books/interview...

This classic study of the decline of community and social engagement in the US deserves an update. Everything described here is still true. We no longer have bowling leagues. Community service organizations are full of senior citizens but not many others. The speculation about causes still seems valid although would need to be updated to include smart phones. This is a thoughtful, well researched and interesting book. Reading it might change the way you live your life.