TALKING ALONE ABOUT WORKING TOGETHER

Robert D. Putnam is the Malkin Research Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University. He has won every major scholarly honor in his profession. In 2013 President Barack Obama awarded him the National Humanities Medal for “deepening our understanding of community in America.” Putnam’s 16 books include Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. His latest, The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again arrived in October from Simon & Schuster.

The Progressive movement, which was rooted in protests against the late 19th century’s inequities and self-centeredness, flowered in the first. Lippmann declared that Americans drift with the seemingly inexorable tide of the Gilded Age but act to master change in a new direction.