Product Description: Drawing on collaborative research from a distinguished team at Harvard and Manchester universities, The Age of Obama asks how two very different societies are responding to the tide of diversity that is being felt around the rich world...read more

Builds on the hopeful message about civic renewal introduced in Bowling Alone to reveal a dozen places around the country where people are engaging in new forms of social activism and community renewal. Reprint. 25,000 first printing.

Product Description: In his national bestseller Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam illuminated the decline of social capital in the US. Now, in Democracies in Flux, Putnam brings together a group of leading scholars who broaden his findings as they examine the state of social capital in eight advanced democracies around the world...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: Social capital can be defined as the institutions and networks of relationships between people, complemented by the attitudes, norms and values that underlie them. Based on a large volume of newly collected data from ten countries, this is the first book to provide a rigorous empirical testing of the link between social capital and economic development...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: For more than a decade the leaders of the United States, Japan, Western Europe and Canada have met annually to discuss international economic and political issues. Hanging Together analyses the history of these seven-power summits and the relations between the Western allies during these turbulent years...read more

Why do some democratic governments succeed and others fail? In a book that has received attention from policymakers and civic activists in America and around the world, Robert Putnam and his collaborators offer empirical evidence for the importance of "civic community" in developing successful institutions. Their focus is on a unique experiment begun in 1970 when Italy created new governments for each of its regions. After spending two decades analyzing the efficacy of these governments in such fields as agriculture, housing, and health services, they reveal patterns of associationism, trust, and cooperation that facilitate good governance and economic prosperity.

Shows how changes in work, family structure, women's roles, and other factors have caused people to become increasingly disconnected from family, friends, neighbors, and democratic structures--and how they may reconnect.

Product Description: It is a notable irony that as democracy replaces other forms of governing throughout the world, citizens of the most established and prosperous democracies (the United States and Canada, Western European nations, and Japan) increasingly report dissatisfaction and frustration with their governments...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: This inside look at the G7/G8 summits is from an author who combines personal experience of the summit process with academic analysis. It weaves together a critical narrative of the annual summits with essays on their interaction with contemporary trends - interdependence, globalization and the end of the Cold War - and with key international institutions...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: This examination of the dynamics of international relations attempts to define the impact of both domestic and international politics on subjects as diverse as nuclear disarmament, human rights and trade.

Product Description: For more than a decade the leaders of the United States, Japan, Western Europe and Canada have met annually to discuss international economic and political issues. Hanging Together analyses the history of these seven-power summits and the relations between the Western allies during these turbulent years...read more

Examines the annual economic summits held by the U.S., Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Italy, and Canada and looks at how nations balance national interests and international economic interdependence