And the Hi, I'm Bill Crystal. Welcome to Conversations. I'm very glad to have would be today

Robert Putnam, Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard School of Government,

formerly at the Government Department at Harvard,

and a very distinguished commentator and scholar,

student of American public life in many different aspects.

So thanks for joining me.

It's great to be with you, Bill.

Your most recent book, your most famous book I suppose maybe is Bowling Alone from what was it,

1999, 2000?

2000 yeah.

We'll come back to that but your most recent book is called our kids the American Dream

and Crisis I think there's a continuity between the two books.

Let's just talk about not to watch much the books, but talk about America.

I mean, what is your analysis of the society, the politics, the culture,

but above all the, I mean, you're an empirical student of American society.

Everyone else has ideas and opinions, but you've actually looked at the data.

So what alarms you, what doesn't alarm you, what are the fun of what are the things one

should know if you're

thinking what's up in America? Well if you mean by what's up I know you didn't but

what's up what's up what's going well there are a lot of things that are going

well and I want to begin well. There are a lot of things that are going well and I want to

begin by saying that because a lot of what I have to say is what's not going well in America.

...