Bowling Alone - the Book Report

THE BOOK REPORT

Author: Robert D. Putnam.

Title: Bowling Alone

Bowling Alone, is a super and very interesting book with full of inspiration in it. Robert with full of

thoughts, and imagination, has tried the best of his knowledge to deliver the message to American citizen

which to me I can say it has come at the right time.

Mr. Putnam, for the message to be reached, he reveals that, What happened to civic and social life in

American communities is the subject of the whole book. [Page 18]. First, I would like to put out three issues

which are major factors led the decrease in the American civic life. These are Human capital, Physical

capital and Social capital.

Social capital is a sociological idea which used in business, economics, organizational behavior, political

science, public health, and the social sciences in general and it refers to the connections within and between

social networks. Unlike much than economic concepts and physical capital human capital, the social

networks of social capital there is a some values in it. Social capita, is also a connection between

Individuals and individuals. Mr. Robert, in his book demonstrate the drop of this values which caused the

diminish in social capital.

By giving all this explanation about social capital, the author discusses the many issues which shows that

how the social capital declined in American society , this include the slowness or decrease in membership

in an organization, attending the church services, attending the club meetings, and interaction with others

face to face in communities. It used to be in those days in the twentieth century, people used to mingle

around together , having fun doing things in a group as a neighbors, but this days you can not see this

happening any more. In America, for a person to go to a neighbor house is not possible. Unless you are

related as a family member. Individualism has become as a traditional life style, in which, it has broken the

bridge between individual and fellow citizen. Comparing to other part of the world, especially in Africa,

since back then, people used to do activities together. Weather yours or somebody's, if something needs to

be done in Corporation, it was done together. A person to go to someone's house is not something to worry

about. You visit anytime you want to. This kind of trend has become a traditional style of life. The benefit

of this kind of life style is to build trust. There is a trust sort on it. It is very hard for a person to harm your

fellow citizen you are living together, sharing every duties as a neighborhood together. Versus in America,

individualism has changed people's mind and every body has no trust on each other. So it is very difficult

to visit some body's house because there is no trust in it.

Like Robert has said, because people have reduced attending club meetings, church services, organization

meetings, this has caused the care for another especially your neighbor to be hard. Because, as a human, to

meet and mingle together it helps some body to express his new ideas for the development of the society,

or it helps some body to reveal out his problems, so people in the community can find a way to help the way

of solving it, also it helps for getting by in oppressive situations.

It is believed that people who attend the church meetings, they are more easier to control the disagreement,

also they are very good in leadership. Faith communities is very major issue to bring people together, it is

the source of social capital in the United states. Almost half of the volunteers in the United States come

from the churches.

Another problem, among the major issues which led the decline in Social capital in American

society is the issue of political participation in the country. Robert says in chapter two, People in America

they are not all of them getting involve in their government. A national with over three hundred million

people, you may find that less than half of the population are involved in political issues, where is the rest