
The Upswing
How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again
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Narrated by:
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Arthur Morey
About this listen
From the author of Bowling Alone and Our Kids, a “sweeping yet remarkably accessible” (The Wall Street Journal) analysis that “offers superb, often counterintuitive insights” (The New York Times) to demonstrate 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.
Deep and accelerating inequality; unprecedented political polarization; vitriolic public discourse; a fraying social fabric; public and private narcissism — Americans today seem to agree on only one thing: This is the worst of times.
But we’ve been here before. During the Gilded Age of the late 1800s, America was highly individualistic, starkly unequal, fiercely polarized, and deeply fragmented, just as it is today. However, as the 20th century opened, America became — slowly, unevenly, but steadily — more egalitarian, more cooperative, more generous; a society on the upswing, more focused on our responsibilities to one another and less focused on our narrower self-interest. Sometime during the 1960s, however, these trends reversed, leaving us in today’s disarray.
In a “magnificent and visionary book” (The New Republic) drawing on his inimitable combination of statistical analysis and storytelling, Robert Putnam analyzes a remarkable confluence of trends that brought us from an “I” society to a “We” society and then back again. He draws on inspiring lessons for our time from an earlier era, when a dedicated group of reformers righted the ship, putting us on a path to becoming a society once again based on community. This is Putnam’s most “remarkable” (Science) work yet, a fitting capstone to a brilliant career.
©2020 Robert D. Putnam. All rights reserved. (P)2020 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.Listeners also enjoyed...
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In charting 125 years of American history where we have gone from an “I” society to a “We” society and then back to “I”, the authors examine how in economics, politics, culture, and society we have abandoned a more communitarian impulse for hyper individualism. But getting to WE again means not just looking ahead but looking back to how we’ve turned that curve before.
The Past is Prologue
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Foot off the Gas
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I was looking for the research and resources for word usage over time.
Subjective Facts
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There is a path forward…
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Interesting theory of 20th century American history
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A way out
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Book to be Read by Everyone!
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This gives me a little hope that we’ll start a new upswing in my lifetime, but the drivers of it will be Millennials and Gen Z. My Gen X fellows don’t appear motivated to improve things in this way.
Worth the Price
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Essential reading
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