Bowling Alone The Collapse and Revival of American Community

Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community is a non-fiction argument by Robert D. Putnam. Bowling Alone experimentally illustrates a decline in social capital in contemporary America, explains the causes and effects of this decline, and offers recommendations for future social capital improvement. According to Putnam, social capital is measured in a variety of ways.

Putnam surveys the decline of social capital in the United States since 1950. He has described the reduction in all the forms of in-person social intercourse upon which the Americans used to found, educate, and enrich the fabric of their social lives. He argues that this undermines the active civil engagement that a strong democracy requires from its citizens. Putnam also cited Americans' growing distrust in their government. Putnam has accepted the possibility that this lack of trust.

Putnam explains how people have become increasingly detached from one another and how social structures—whether PTA, church or political parties—have crumbled, based on massive new data that indicate Americans' changing behavior. No one had so effectively assessed the havoc that these broken relationships have wrought on our physical and civic health, nor had anybody elevated their essential power in establishing a society that is happy, healthy, and safe until the publishing of this groundbreaking work.