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Bowling Alone: Revised and Updated
- The Collapse and Revival of American Community
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 18 hrs and 56 mins
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Publisher's Summary
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, 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.
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What listeners say about Bowling Alone: Revised and Updated
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
- William S. Gross
- 11-13-17
Long Long book
I listened to this book which seemed to go on for months. When the narrator is going over facts and stats endless it is just hard to grasp everything.
The whole book boils down to we are no longer a social society in any way. Bowling used to be part of the fabric of each and every community. You went bowling to see friends each week, to make new friends and business contacts. Now everyone just goes online or text.
The author throws out stats after stats showing of the decline in various organization over the last 50 years, and how this decline is an overview of the effects on bowling. I have been in bowling industry for 20 plus years now and there have been numerous factors for the collapse of league bowling. This book gave more incite into some of those factors that I wouldn't have thought about.
14 people found this helpful
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Performance
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- August B.
- 05-05-20
He says everything seven times
I was amazed how dry this was even for a policy book. It's probably the most important subject in the English-speaking world, and it manages to come out boring with how aggressive Putnam is with the facts. They just don't stop. Constant reiterations on how nobody goes to community things anymore and how democracy is mortally crippled and how severely Boomers, as a cohort, suck the big one.
I would like to see some updated analysis on the effects of the internet, it was naturally handled lightly given that this book came out when the Lone Gunmen were pirating cable.
If you want the long version, listen to this book and despair; If you want the short:
SPOILERS
People aren't involved in clubs, communities, and friendships at nearly the rate they were before the 60's, and Putnam
attributes like 90% of the cause to television and 10% to feminism.
Also, I can't remember a single thing he might have said about revival. All suggestions seemed naive and doomed to failure
5 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 07-11-18
Enlightening, but Dry
Expert analysis of the reduction of social capital, but very dry. Still a classic work.
4 people found this helpful
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- Erich R.
- 01-22-22
Meh
Famous book but somewhat of a let down. A lot of questionably gathered/sourced/analyzed statistics and trying to raise more questions and doubts than really get at answers. Very repetitive structure too in how the book is written/presents.
1 person found this helpful
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- DV
- 11-13-19
Could be good, but data dumping ruins it.
Way too much data that is not necessary to get a point across. narrator a bit dull also.
1 person found this helpful
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- A & C Bischel
- 06-02-17
amazing research and well-written
bowling alone tells the story of how America has lost its group nature. going through a hundred years of research and Analysis this book thoroughly explains some key reasons American society is in the decline.
1 person found this helpful
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- J. M.
- 05-28-23
Yawn
Bad riding, but only makes a few good points. I wish yes was updated, I tried to make it to apply to today’s society, but couldn’t. But even with that in mind, this isn’t very good storytelling or a very good argument.
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- Anonymous User
- 04-19-23
We are stronger together
This is my second reading of a Robert Putnam book. As a 24 year old male who grew up with social media, video games, and cellphones I understand that we secretly want to bowl together again.
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- Anonymous User
- 02-14-23
Pretty long book with lots of visuals
I recommend listening to audio at faster speed and then looking at visuals in book or provided pdf. Finished in 2 days while doing other tasks. Took a good majority of both days. This is primarily a research book, so be warned. Not a simple quaint story. Lots of useful studies and calls to action.
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- Bradley A Joyce
- 07-28-22
heartbreaking
Every negative trend he identified 20 years ago got much worse. Any positive signs turned out to be Pollyannaisms.
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The Upswing
- How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again
- By: Robert D. Putnam
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 12 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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An eminent political scientist's brilliant analysis of economic, social and political trends over the past century demonstrating 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 - from the author of Bowling Alone and Our Kids.
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Good historical analysis but weak recommendations.
- By RealSmartFun on 08-23-22
By: Robert D. Putnam
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American Grace
- How Religion Divides and Unites Us
- By: Robert D. Putnam, David E. Campbell
- Narrated by: Dan John Miller
- Length: 18 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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American Grace takes its findings from two of the largest, most comprehensive surveys ever conducted on religion and public life in America, plus in-depth studies of diverse congregations---among them a megachurch, a Mormon congregation, a Catholic parish, a reform Jewish synagogue, and an African American congregation.
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Interesting Analysis
- By Daniel on 10-08-12
By: Robert D. Putnam, and others
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Coming Apart
- The State of White America, 1960–2010
- By: Charles Murray
- Narrated by: Traber Burns
- Length: 12 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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In Coming Apart, Charles Murray explores the formation of American classes that are different in kind from anything we have ever known, focusing on whites as a way of driving home the fact that the trends he describes do not break along lines of race or ethnicity.
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Brilliant & Flawed
- By Douglas C. Bates on 05-15-12
By: Charles Murray
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Habits of the Heart, Updated Edition
- Individualism and Commitment in American Life
- By: Robert N. Bellah, Richard Madsen, William M. Sullivan, and others
- Narrated by: Marguerite Gavin
- Length: 16 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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First published in 1985, Habits of the Heart continues to be one of the most discussed interpretations of modern American society, a quest for a democratic community that draws on our diverse civic and religious traditions. In a new preface, the authors relate the arguments of the book both to the current realities of American society and to the growing debate about the country's future. With this new edition, one of the most influential books of recent times takes on a new immediacy.
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well-done condescension
- By Laura Ford on 02-23-23
By: Robert N. Bellah, and others
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The Big Sort
- Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart
- By: Bill Bishop, Robert G. Cushing
- Narrated by: Paul Brion
- Length: 12 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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In 2004, journalist Bill Bishop coined the term "the big sort". Armed with startling new demographic data, he made national news in a series of articles showing how Americans have been sorting themselves into alarmingly homogeneous communities - not by region or by state but by city and even neighborhood. Over the past three decades, we have been choosing the neighborhoods (and churches and news shows) compatible with our lifestyles and beliefs.
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Build the Wall?
- By Amazon Customer on 01-23-19
By: Bill Bishop, and others
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The Affluent Society
- By: John Kenneth Galbraith
- Narrated by: Marc Cashman
- Length: 10 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Galbraith's classic on the "economics of abundance" is, in the words of the New York Times, "a compelling challenge to conventional thought". With customary clarity, eloquence, and humor, Galbraith cuts to the heart of what economic security means (and doesn't mean) in today's world and lays bare the hazards of individual and societal complacence about economic inequity.
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Good 20+ years after the 40th anniversary edition
- By Munair on 06-18-22
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Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism
- By: Anne Case, Angus Deaton
- Narrated by: Kate Harper
- Length: 11 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Life expectancy in the United States has recently fallen for three years in a row - a reversal not seen since 1918 or in any other wealthy nation in modern times. In the past two decades, deaths of despair from suicide, drug overdose, and alcoholism have risen dramatically, and now claim hundreds of thousands of American lives each year - and they're still rising. Case and Deaton, known for first sounding the alarm about deaths of despair, explain the overwhelming surge in these deaths and shed light on the social and economic forces that are making life harder for the working class.
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So many words, so little insight
- By Trebla on 03-22-20
By: Anne Case, and others
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A Time to Build
- From Family and Community to Congress and the Campus, How Recommitting to Our Institutions Can Revive the American Dream
- By: Yuval Levin
- Narrated by: Ford Enlow
- Length: 6 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Americans are living through a social crisis. Our politics is polarized and bitterly divided. Culture wars rage on campus, in the media, social media, and other arenas of our common life. And for too many Americans, alienation can descend into despair, weakening families and communities and even driving an explosion of opioid abuse. Left and right alike have responded with populist anger at our institutions, and use only metaphors of destruction to describe the path forward: cleaning house, draining swamps. But, as Yuval Levin argues, this is a misguided prescription.
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Incisive and Illuminating
- By Jakob on 01-26-23
By: Yuval Levin
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Oblivion
- Stories
- By: David Foster Wallace
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 14 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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In the stories that make up Oblivion, David Foster Wallace joins the rawest, most naked humanity with the infinite involutions of self-consciousness--a combination that is dazzlingly, uniquely his. These are worlds undreamt-of by any other mind. Only David Foster Wallace could convey a father's desperate loneliness by way of his son's daydreaming through a teacher's homicidal breakdown ("The Soul Is Not a Smithy"). Or could explore the deepest and most hilarious aspects of creativity.
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Just 2 Fast & Huge & ALL Interconnected 4 Words
- By Darwin8u on 08-22-12