Best Selling Books by Robert D. Putnam

A New York Times bestseller and “a passionate, urgent” (The New Yorker) examination of the growing inequality gap from the bestselling author of Bowling Alone: why fewer Americans today have the opportunity for upward mobility. Central to the very idea of America is the principle that we are a nation of opportunity. But over the last quarter century we have seen a disturbing “opportunity gap” emerge. We Americans have always believed that those who have talent and try hard will succeed, but this central tenet of the American Dream seems no longer true or at the least, much less true than it was. In Our Kids, Robert Putnam offers a personal and authoritative look at this new American crisis, beginning with the example of his high school class of 1959 in Port Clinton, Ohio. The vast majority of those students went on to lives better than those of their parents. But their children and grandchildren have faced diminishing prospects. Putnam tells the tale of lessening opportunity through poignant life stories of rich, middle class, and poor kids from cities and suburbs across the country, brilliantly blended with the latest social-science research. “A truly masterful volume” (Financial Times), Our Kids provides a disturbing account of the American dream that is “thoughtful and persuasive” (The Economist). Our Kids offers a rare combination of individual testimony and rigorous evidence: “No one can finish this book and feel complacent about equal opportunity” (The New York Times Book Review).

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.

Discusses why community building is so important and looks at success stories in the United States.

From the author of Bowling Alone and Our Kids, a “sweeping yet remarkably accessible” (The Wall Street Journal) analysis that “offers superb, often counterintuitive insights” (The New York Times) to demonstrate how we have gone from an individualistic “I” society to a more communitarian “We” society and then back again, and how we can learn from that experience to become a stronger more unified nation. Deep and accelerating inequality; unprecedented political polarization; vitriolic public discourse; a fraying social fabric; public and private narcissism—Americans today seem to agree on only one thing: This is the worst of times. But we’ve been here before. During the Gilded Age of the late 1800s, America was highly individualistic, starkly unequal, fiercely polarized, and deeply fragmented, just as it is today. However as the twentieth century opened, America became—slowly, unevenly, but steadily—more egalitarian, more cooperative, more generous; a society on the upswing, more focused on our responsibilities to one another and less focused on our narrower self-interest. Sometime during the 1960s, however, these trends reversed, leaving us in today’s disarray. In a “magnificent and visionary book” (The New Republic) drawing on his inimitable combination of statistical analysis and storytelling, Robert Putnam analyzes a remarkable confluence of trends that brought us from an “I” society to a “We” society and then back again. He draws on inspiring lessons for our time from an earlier era, when a dedicated group of reformers righted the ship, putting us on a path to becoming a society once again based on community. This is Putnam’s most “remarkable” (Science) work yet, a fitting capstone to a brilliant career.

Why do some democratic governments succeed and others fail? In a book that has received attention from policymakers and civic activists in America and around the world, Robert Putnam and his collaborators offer empirical evidence for the importance of "civic community" in developing successful institutions. Their focus is on a unique experiment begun in 1970 when Italy created new governments for each of its regions. After spending two decades analyzing the efficacy of these governments in such fields as agriculture, housing, and health services, they reveal patterns of associationism, trust, and cooperation that facilitate good governance and economic prosperity.

Based on two new studies, "American Grace" examines the impact of religion on American life and explores how that impact has changed in the last half-century.

In uneasy partnership at the helm of the modern state stand elected party politicians and professional bureaucrats. This book is the first comprehensive comparison of these two powerful elites. In seven countries—the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany, Sweden, Italy, and the Netherlands—researchers questioned 700 bureaucrats and 6OO politicians in an effort to understand how their aims, attitudes, and ambitions differ within cultural settings. One of the authors’ most significant findings is that the worlds of these two elites overlap much more in the United States than in Europe. But throughout the West bureaucrats and politicians each wear special blinders and each have special virtues. In a well-ordered polity, the authors conclude, politicians articulate society’s dreams and bureaucrats bring them gingerly to earth.

''Hanging Together'' charts the modern dilemma between economic interdependence and national sovereignty.

Drawing on collaborative research from a distinguished team at Harvard and Manchester universities, The age of Obama asks how two very different societies are responding to the tide of diversity that is being felt around the rich world. Guardian journalist Tom Clark, Robert D. Putnam – best-selling author of Bowling alone – and Manchester’s Edward Fieldhouse offer a wonderfully readable account. Like Bowling alone, The age of Obama mixes social scientific rigor with accessible charts and lively arguments. It will be enjoyed by politics, sociology and geography students, as well as by anyone else with an interest in ethnic relations. Injustice, it turns out, still blight lives of many UK and US minorities – particularly African Americans. And there are signs the new diversity strains community life. Yet in both countries, public opinion is running irreversibly in favour of tolerance. That augurs well for the future – and suggests a British Obama cannot be ruled out.

O objetivo deste livro é contribuir para compreensão do desempenho das instituições democráticas. De que modo as instituições formais influenciam a prática da política e do governo? Mudando-se as instituições, mudam-se também as práticas? Ou a qualidade de uma democracia depende da qualidade de seus cidadãos? ''Estudando as regiões da Itália, este livro examina certas questões fundamentais atinentes à vida cívica. Foi escrito tendo em vista dois tipos muito diferentes de público leitor - os que partilham do meu fascínio pelas sutilezas da vida italiana e os que, sem chegar a tanto, todavia se interessam pela teoria e a prática da democracia. '' - Robert d. Putnam.

Este libro, una de las investigaciones más destacadas de Robert Putnam, es el resultado de una amplia y meticulosa investigación que se inicia en los años setenta. La transferencia de competencias en Italia, desde la administración nacional a los gobiernos regionales, proporcionaba el escenario ideal para estudiar la evolución de nuevas instituciones. Robert Putnam aprovecha esta oportunidad histórica para llevar a cabo un estudio cuyos hallazgos han tenido una repercusión que ha trascendido el caso italiano y cuyas contribuciones a la teoría y la práctica de la democracia contemporánea han tenido un impacto indiscutible.Mediante esta investigación comparada Putnam estudia los distintos factores que, a partir del cambio institucional, influyen en el desigual funcionamiento de los gobiernos regionales italianos. Así, mediante la articulación metodológica de distintas perspectivas teóricas y técnicas de investigación, Putnam indaga en las relaciones existentes entre el desempeño institucional, los factores socioeconómicos y los aspectos socioculturales. Tras realizar un profundo análisis longitudinal y transversal del desarrollo y funcionamiento de los nuevos gobiernos regionales, el autor revela la importancia que la vida cívica y las distintas tradiciones políticas tienen a la hora de explicar el éxito de las instituciones democráticas. Mientras que la tradición de repúblicas comunales existente en el norte y centro de Italia propició el desarrollo de sólidas normas y redes de compromiso cívico, la tradición monárquica del sur condujo al establecimiento de relaciones políticas verticales, lo que se traduce en una vida cívica más débil y fragmentada. En definitiva, Putnam nos demuestra cómo la democracia y sus principales instituciones funcionan mejor en las sociedades dotadas de un mayor capital social, es decir, en aquellas que están basadas en relaciones de confianza, normas de reciprocidad y redes de compromiso cívico.Joan Subirats, catedrático de Ciencia Política de la Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, autor de la presentación de este nuevo título de la colección Clásicos Contemporáneos del CIS, recorre tanto los aspectos teóricos y metodológicos fundamentales de la obra, como los debates más importantes que ésta ha suscitado desde su publicación.