The Upswing

How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again

By: Robert D. Putnam, Shaylyn Romney Garrett

Narrated by: Arthur Morey

From the author of Bowling Alone and Our Kids, a “sweeping yet remarkably accessible” (The Wall Street Journal) analysis of social capital, civic engagement, and American democracy 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 and the wealth gap; unprecedented political polarization and partisan division; 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 and civic renewal. This is Putnam’s most “remarkable” (Science) work yet, a fitting capstone to a brilliant career.

Critic reviews

"Narrator Arthur Morey delivers statistical concepts with insightful tonal variations that enhance comprehension and maintain the listener's interest. Robert Putnam posits that the last 120 years of economic history have followed an "I-we-I" trajectory. The Gilded Age was marked by massive inequality and exploitation of workers. Then the New Deal and civil rights shared gains with the masses. Now we're in a new Gilded Age, with a return to inequality and individualism. Morey's clear and appealing performance makes a compelling academic argument into something much more accessible. With droll humor and steady pacing he navigates listeners through evidence found in taxation, unions, education and the like, along with commentary on how unusual baby names and self-love might indicate something telling about our culture today."

Intellectual Horse S@:!

Narration and production was excellent.

The writing was an intellectual creating a conclusion then digging up the evidence from nothing. One I-We-I occurrence does not make a pattern. He violate the "Correlation does not mean Causation" on nearly every agreement. Finally, his solution to the next great movement from a bunch of Self Absorbed Gen Z Cry Babies miraculously surrendering their self absorbed tripe for a selfless Progressive Utopia is the funniest joke I've heard this century.

Excellent

Not easy to listen to without the printed version nearby, especially for the charts. I would say that I would never have gotten through the book without audible!

The Past is Prologue

This book does what few do - refuses to make bold conclusions based on limited evidence. No blueprints or definitive answers here. Just a rich conversation of varied and dynamic movements that shaped the nature of American culture.

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.

Foot off the Gas

I enjoyed the premise of this book as well as the many valid points not often discussed by other authors. However, Putnam does have the tendency of making bold claims about the recent past without providing sufficient evidence to back them up. For example, Putnam alludes to growing white opposition to racial integration since the 60s’ that manifests today. He calls this the “foot off the gas effect”, which implies that Americans have somehow devoted less effort to racial equality since the 60s’. Which is hard to parse given the increased emphasis on antiracism in recent decades. Apart from mentioning principled opposition to affirmative action, he never addressed how we exactly are taking our foot off the gas in this regard. In the section on gender, he also takes disparate outcomes and infers sinister motivations on the part of men. For example, he cites the often used and misleading wage gap statistics as another foot off the gas event. In addition, he makes a few conflicting statements about the role of childcare in the above wage gap. Bottom line, when Putnam says “foot off the gas” he is vaguely accusing society of a sin of omission or commission directly or indirectly causing the downturn. I do find it refreshing that while hyping up the past, Putnam refrains from being overly nostalgic for the days of lynch mobs and coat hanger abortions, unlike other authors. This book also exaggerates the role of libertarian ideals in leading to the “downturn”. As of this review, the highest-ranking libertarian official is a state senator in Montana, hardly an influential ideology in its pure form. My final point is that by exclusively focusing on the United States many of Putnam’s grander points are highly limited in scope. America is not a vacuum, and the “I we I curve” is very much a global event. Putnam’s arguments would be better served if he devoted at least a paragraph to the wider world. In sum, I agree with a lot of Putnam’s points about the last century, but if I actually posed them myself (in the way Putnam did) in my Poli Sci class, I’d be lucky to get a b-.

Interesting theory of 20th century American history

“Bowling Alone” author Putnam and coauthor Garrett take us from the first gilded age of the late 1890’s to the second, current one, charting the correlated behavior of many variables, from income inequality to baby names. In all of these variables they identify a common, century-long waveform they call “I-we-I”: a cultural shift from self-centered individualism to “happy days” collectivism and back again. They use this thesis as a lens to examine trends in the evolution of economics, culture, politics, and race and gender relations, marshaling copious amounts of data as supporting evidence. While not without flaws - the concluding recommendations seem a bit naive, and the lack of any discussion of the relationship between America’s trajectory and trends in the wider world seems like a missed opportunity for improved understanding— it was, overall, a worthwhile listen, especially for people who enjoy seeing new insights extracted from history.