Margaret Butler, Film and Community in Britain and France: From La Règle du Jeu to Room at the Top. London: I.B. Taurus, 2004. £47.50 (hbk), £16.99 (pbk). 252 pp. Michael Bugeja, Interpersonal Divide: The Search for Community in a Technological Age. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. £24.99 (hbk), £10.99 (pbk). 226 pp. Amy Maria Kenyon, Dreaming Suburbia: Detroit and the Production of Postwar Space and Culture. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 2004. $24.95 (pbk). 214 pp.

Review Article: Falling Apart, Together

BOWLING ALONE warns Americans that their stock of "social capital", the very fabric of their connections with each other, has been accelerating down. Putnam describes the resulting impoverishment of their lives and communities. Drawing on evidence that includes nearly half a million interviews conducted over a quarter of a century in America, Putnam shows how changes in work, family structure, age, suburban life, television, computers, women's roles and other factors are isolating Americans from each other in a trend whose reflection can clearly be seen in British society. We sign 30 percent fewer petitions than we did ten years ago. Membership in organisations- from the Boy Scouts to political parties and the Church is falling. Ties with friends and relatives are fraying: we're 35 percent less likely to visit our neighbours or have dinner with our families than we were thirty years ago. We watch sport alone instead of with our friends. A century ago, American citizens' means of connecting were at a low point after decades of urbanisation, industrialisation and immigration uprooted them from families and friends. That generation demonstrated a capacity for renewal by creating the organisations that pulled Americans together. Putnam shows how we can learn from them and reinvent common enterprises that will make us secure, productive, happy and hopeful.

Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community

An Overture, or Welcome to Elusive Community. The Agony of Tantalus. Rerooting the Uprooted. Times of Disengagement, or the Great Transformation Mark Two. Secession of the Successful. Two Sources of Communalism. Right to Recognition, Right to Redistribution. From Equality to Multiculturalism. The Bottom Line: The Ghetto. Many Cultures, One Humanity?. Afterword. Notes. Index

Community: Seeking Safety in an Insecure World

But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell's dark vision, there was another slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.

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Review Article: Falling Apart, Together

References

Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community

Community: Seeking Safety in an Insecure World

Amusing Ourselves to Death

Cultures, communities, identities