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Leonard's Reviews > Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community
Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community
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God this book is painstaking. (Read: painful.) It's good, it's thorough, and I read all five hundred pages or whatever. But the writing style induces anguish. It's so full of qualifications like: "But this correlation doesn't imply causality" or "Even when we hold race, class, gender, education, and imcome constant..."
I'll save you hours of your life and give you the summary: Throughout the twentieth century, more and more Americans were participating in clubs, having dinner parties, going to church, volunteering, working on political campaigns--until the 1970s. Then, this steady increase in partipation became a sharp drop, and civic life continues to decline.
Various things could have caused the decline: women entering the work force, racial integration, the internet, longer commutes, busier work schedules. Really, though, the evidence points to two main things that caused this decline: television and generational differences (the baby boomers were less likely to volunteer, Gen X even moreso, and so on).
This is a shame, because people who are involved in civic life (even something as small as playing cards or hosting dinner parties) are more likely to vote, to volunteer, to have friends, to create safe neighborhoods, to make more money, etc, etc.
This book might just finally get my ass in gear to do the volunteering I've been talking about.
I'll save you hours of your life and give you the summary: Throughout the twentieth century, more and more Americans were participating in clubs, having dinner parties, going to church, volunteering, working on political campaigns--until the 1970s. Then, this steady increase in partipation became a sharp drop, and civic life continues to decline.
Various things could have caused the decline: women entering the work force, racial integration, the internet, longer commutes, busier work schedules. Really, though, the evidence points to two main things that caused this decline: television and generational differences (the baby boomers were less likely to volunteer, Gen X even moreso, and so on).
This is a shame, because people who are involved in civic life (even something as small as playing cards or hosting dinner parties) are more likely to vote, to volunteer, to have friends, to create safe neighborhoods, to make more money, etc, etc.
This book might just finally get my ass in gear to do the volunteering I've been talking about.
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Reading Progress
Started Reading
November 1, 2007
–
Finished Reading
November 2, 2007
– Shelved
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by
Laura
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rated it 1 star
May 25, 2011 04:46PM
I admire you for making it through all the pages. I gave up after about 100 or so. Painful read!
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fair play! I've always meant to read this booked but feared that it's statistical leanings would bore me to tears. your summary has saved me hours!
I'm about a quarter in and agree with your review. You nailed it! The warnings on how data was collected and analyzed and potential that some data might be unreliable is beginning to amuse me. It's like the author considered every challenge another statistician might raise and prepped his response before the challenge could be raised. Also, as far as I have gotten, there are no anecdotes to humanize the data. But, the author's assertions are interesting and very much worth consideration. If the author had sat down with a good ghost writer, this book could have been awesome! (I am enjoying it anyway. )
Thank you! I really wanted to stick with it but the writing is so painfully dry and I have too many more books waiting in the queue.
