Will I love Bowling Alone?

Robert Putnam is a Harvard political scientist who studies social trust, which he calls “social capital,” because once we earn trust, we can spend it for a long time.

Putnam argues that Americans in the mid-twentieth century had much higher levels of social trust than we do today, and this made for a much more stable and decent politics. That greater social trust, he argues, was the product of people joining clubs, fraternities, and other associations in huge numbers. Whereas people used to bowl in bowling leagues, now they generally bowl alone.

In case you are wondering about what has… show more.

When I first read Bowling Alone, it gave frame to something I had been feeling for years. I share in my book how I had seen institutions thinning out—fewer gatherings, less trust, more isolation—but I didn’t yet have language for it.

Putnam helped me see that the small habits of association are not small at all. They are the scaffolding of democracy. This book helped me understand that when community weakens, everything weakens with it. It clarified why rebuilding civic life isn’t nostalgic, it’s necessary.