the book is not simply nostalgic about clubs and bowling leagues; it argues that community connection changes how institutions and everyday life function.

evidence draws from roughly 500,000 interviews over decades, alongside many other valid indicators

title: "Bowling Alone" url: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling_Alone" author: "Wikipedia"

Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community is a 2000 nonfiction book by Robert D. Putnam. It was developed from his 1995 essay entitled " Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital " in the Journal of Democracy. 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 Americans used to found, educate, and enrich the fabric of their social lives. He argues that this undermines the active civic engagement which a strong democracy requires from its citizens.

Contents

Putnam discussed ways in which Americans disengaged from community involvement, including decreased voter turnout, attendance at public meetings, service on committees, and work with political parties. Putnam also cited Americans' growing distrust in their government. Putnam accepted the possibility that this lack of trust could be attributed to "the long litany of political tragedies and scandals since the 1960s",1 but believed that this explanation was limited when viewing it alongside other "trends in civic engagement of a wider sort".1

Putnam noted the aggregate loss in membership and number of volunteers in many existing civic organizations such as religious groups (Knights of Columbus, B'nai Brith, etc.), labor unions, parent–teacher associations, Federation of Women's Clubs, League of Women Voters, military veterans' organizations, volunteers with Boy Scouts and the Red Cross, and fraternal organizations (Lions Clubs, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, United States Junior Chamber, Freemasonry, Rotary, Kiwanis, etc.).1 Putnam used bowling as an example to illustrate this; although the number of people who bowled had increased in the last 20 years, the number of people who bowled in leagues had decreased. If people bowled alone, they did not participate in the social interaction and civic discussions that might occur in a league environment.1

Reception

A review in Kirkus Reviews praised the book for being understandable for non-academic readers, and said that overall it was an "exhaustive and carefully argued study." 6 The Economist called it "a prodigious achievement." 7 C. S. Fischer, a sociology professor from the University of California, gave a positive review. Although he criticized a few of Putnam's interpretations of the data and felt that "social capital " was an awkward metaphor, he nevertheless called it "a 10-pin strike, a major contribution to study of social networks and social cohesion" with particular praise for its wide use of data.8

Everett Carll Ladd claimed that Putnam completely ignored existing field studies, most notably the landmark sociological Middletown studies,9 which during the 1920s raised the same concerns he does today, except the technology being attacked as promoting isolation was radio instead of television and video games.10

Other critics questioned Putnam's major finding—that civic participation has been declining. Journalist Nicholas Lemann proposed that rather than declining, civic activity in the US had assumed different forms. While bowling leagues and many other organizations had declined, others like youth soccer leagues had grown.11 He also points out that the thesis of Bowling Alone contradicts an implicit assumption of Putnam's previous book Making Democracy Work —that a tradition of civic engagement is incredibly durable over time.

In their 2017 book One Nation After Trump, Thomas E. Mann, Norm Ornstein and E. J. Dionne wrote that the decline of social and civic groups that Putnam documented was a factor in the election of Donald Trump as "many rallied to him out of a yearning for forms of community and solidarity that they sense have been lost." 12

Publication data

• Putnam, Robert D. (2000). Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-7432-0304-6.

1. Putnam, Robert D (1995). "Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital". Journal of Democracy. 6 (1): 65–78. doi:10.1353/jod.1995.0002. Archived from the original on February 1, 2010. Retrieved April 6, 2005.↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩

2. "Bowling" (PDF). Spalding's Athletic Library. Vol. 1, no. 3. New York: American Sports Publishing Company. December 1892. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 27, 2020.↩

3. Zakaria, Fareed (August 24, 2025). "Disconnected: Life in a Disruptive Digital Age". CNN. Source: American Bowling Congress, Women's Bowling Congress, Robert D. Putnam's Bowling Alone ↩

4. Will, George F. (January 5, 1995). "The re-potting hypothesis". The Hour. p. 6.↩

5. Putnam, Robert D. (2000). Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon & Schuster. pp. 283 – 284. ISBN 978-0684832838.↩

6. "Kirkus Reviews: Bowling Alone". Kirkus Reviews.↩

7. "Self-centred". The Economist. July 6, 2000. Retrieved June 28, 2018.↩

8. Fischer, C. S. (2005). "Bowling Alone: What's the Score?" (PDF). Social Networks. 27 (2): 155–167. doi:10.1016/j.socnet.2005.01.009.↩

9. Ladd, Everett Carll (March 1, 1999). "The American way - civic engagement - thrives". Christian Science Monitor.↩

10. Foley, Michael W; Edwards, Bob (1996). "The Paradox of Civil Society". Journal of Democracy. 7 (3): 38–52. doi:10.1353/jod.1996.0048.↩

11. Lehmann, Nicholas (April 1996). "Kicking in Groups". The Atlantic.↩

12. "'One Nation After Trump', by Dionne, Ornstein and Mann". Financial Times. October 8, 2017. Archived from the original on December 10, 2022. Retrieved August 22, 2019.↩