Last update 3/12/2001

Looking for these Books on Social Capital?

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Recommended Reading

To learn more about Social Capital, you might to begin with one (or more) of these books and articles.

You can find many of these articles online, but try building a little Social Capital by going to your local library or bookstore for the rest. You can order books online from your local independent bookstore by clicking on the Booksense link. Local bookstores build Social Capital by connecting people with books and with each other in their home communities!

For Starters

The Work of Robert D. Putnam
Robert D. Putnam, the director of the Saguaro Seminar and the Peter and Isabel Malkin Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University, has been chronicling the state of Social Capital in America (and elsewhere) for more than a decade. The basics of his work are contained in these two books and two earlier articles.

Putnam, Robert. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. Simon and Schuster: New York, NY, 2000.
http://www.bowlingalone.com/

Putnam, Robert. Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993.

Putnam, Robert D. "The Prosperous Community: Social Capital and Public Life." The American Prospect 13 (Spring 1993): 35-42. http://www.prospect.org/print/V4/13/putnam-r.html

Putnam, Robert D. "The Strange Disappearance of Civic America." The American Prospect (Winter 1996): 34-48. http://www.prospect.org/print/V7/24/putnam-r.html

Back to the Future
Alexis De Tocqueville described America’s Social Capital as he saw it in the early days of the Republic. For the original text of DeTocqueville’s Democracy in America, go to http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/.

Better yet, visit your local library!

And for some more viewpoints about Social Capital:

Baker, Wayne. Achieving Success through Social Capital: Tapping the Hidden Resources in Your Personal and Business Networks, University of Michigan Business School Management Series. Jossey-Bass: San Francisco, 2000.

Grisham, Vaughn L., Jr., Tupelo: The Evolution of a Community. Dayton, Ohio: Kettering Foundation, 1999.

Schorr, Lisbeth. Common Purpose: Strengthening Families and Neighborhoods to Rebuild America. NY: Doubleday, 1997. see especially pp. 244-292

Schambra, William. "Local Groups are the Key to America’s Civic Renewal." Brookings Review (Fall 1997): 20-22.
http://www.brook.edu/press/REVIEW/FALL97/BUILD.HTM

Skocpol, Theda, America's Voluntary Groups Thrive in a National Network." Brookings Review (Fall 1997): 20-22. http://www.brook.edu/press/REVIEW/FALL97/BUILD.HTM

Shaffer, Carolyn R. and Kristin Anundsen. Creating Community Anywhere: Finding Support and Connection in a Fragmented World. NY: Perigee, 1993.

Even More Resources

For an even more comprehensive list of research, articles and resources on Social Capital, go to the World Bank’s PovertyNet web site, http://www.worldbank.org/poverty/scapital/index.htm.

Adler, Paul. "Social Capital: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly." August 1999. Paper in progress. http://www.worldbank.org/poverty/scapital/library/adler.htm

Berkman, Lisa F. and Ichiro Kawachi, eds. Social Epidemiology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Cohen, Donald J. and Laurence Prusak: "In Good Company: How Social Capital Makes Organizations Work". HBS Press Book, (2000).
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/25/business/25VALU.html?searchpv=site04

Coleman, James "Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital" American Journal of Sociology 94(1988): S95-S120.

Collier, Paul. "Social Capital and Poverty" Washington, DC: The World Bank (mimeo), 1988.
http://www.worldbank.org/poverty/scapital/wkrppr/sciwp4.pdf

Fischer, Claude S. To Dwell Among Friends: Personal Networks in Town and City. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1982.

Flora, Cornelia Butler and Jan L. Flora. "Measuring and Interpreting Social Capital on the Community Level: The Difference and Similarities between Social Capital and Entrepreneurial Social Infrastructure" Paper in progress. http://www.worldbank.org/poverty/scapital/library/flora2.htm

Flora, Jan. L. "Social Capital and Communities of Place." Paper in progress. http://www.worldbank.org/poverty/scapital/library/flora1.htm

Fukuyama , Francis, Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity. New York: Free Press, 1995.

Glaeser, Edward, David Laibson, Jose Scheinkman, and Christine Soutter, "What is Social Capital? The Determinants of Trust and Trustworthiness," National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 7216. Cambridge, Mass.: National Bureau of Economic Research, July 1999.

Grootaert, Christiaan "Social Capital: The Missing Link?", in Expanding the Measure of Wealth: Indicators of Environmentally Sustainable Development Washington, DC: The World Bank, 1997. http://www.worldbank.org/poverty/scapital/wkrppr/sciwp3.pdf

Helliwell, John F. , Robert D. Putnam, "Education and Social Capital," National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper W7121. Cambridge, Mass.: National Bureau of Economic Research, May 1999.

Kawachi, Ichiro ,Bruce P. Kennedy, and Kimberly Lochner, "Long Live Community: Social Capital as Public Health," The American Prospect, November / December 1997, 56-69. http://www.prospect.org/print/V8/35/kawachi-i.html

Knack, Stephen. "Social Capital, Growth and Poverty: A Survey and Extensions." SCI Working Paper No. 7, May 1999. http://www.worldbank.org/poverty/scapital/wkrppr/sciwp7.pdf

Knack, Stephen and Phillip Keefer "Does Social Capital Have an Economic Payoff? A Cross-Country Investigation" Quarterly Journal of Economics 112(1997): 1251-88

Lemann, Nicholas. "Kicking in Groups," The Atlantic Monthly. April 1996: 22-26.
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/96apr/kicking/kicking.htm

Loury, Glenn "The Social Capital Deficit." The New Democrat (May-June 1995): 28-29.

Narayan, Deepa. Bonds and Bridges: Social Capital and Poverty, Poverty Group, PREM World Bank. July 1999 http://www.worldbank.org/poverty/scapital/library/narayan.htm

Naylor, Thomas H., William H. Willimon, and Rolf Österberg. "The Search for Community in the Workplace." Business and Society Review, (1996). 97:42-47

Portes, Alejandro & Patricia Landolt, "The Downside of Social Capital." The American Prospect 26 (May-June 1996): 18-21, 94. http://epn.org/prospect/26/26-cnt2.html

Potapchuk, William R., Jarle P. Crocker and William H. Schecter, Jr. "Building Community with Social Capital: Chits and Chums or Chats with Change." National Civic Review 86, No. 2 (Summer 1997): 129-140.

Putnam, Robert D. "Bowling Alone Revisited." The Responsive Community, v5, issue 2, (Spring 1995): 18-33.

Robert Putnam, "Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital," Journal of Democracy 6:1 (January 1995), 65-78;

Resnick, Paul. "Beyond Bowling Together: SocioTechnical Capital." Working Paper. Revised version to appear in HCI in the New Millenium, edited by John Carroll. Addison-Wesley. http://faculty.si.umich.edu/~presnick/papers/stk/Resnickverifiedhardcopy.doc

Robison, Lindon and Marcelo Siles (1997) "Social Capital and Household Income Distribution in the United States: 1980-1990" Michigan State University, Department of Agricultural Economics, Report No. 545.

Schor, Juliet, "Civic Engagement and Working Hours: Do Americans Really Have More Free Time Than Ever Before?" in Working Time, Overwork and Underemployment: Trends, Theory and Policy Perspectives, eds. Lonnie Golden and Deborah Figart. London: Routledge, 2000.

Skocpol, Theda and Morris P. Fiorin, eds. Civic Engagement in American Democracy. Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1999.

van Bastelaer, Thierry. "Does Social Capital Facilitate the Poors Access to Credit? A Review of the Microeconomic Literature" SCI Working Paper No. 8, May 1999.
http://www.worldbank.org/poverty/scapital/wkrppr/sciwp8.pdf

Verba, Sidney, Kay Schlozman, and Henry Brady, Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995.

Wellman, Barry and Kenneth Frank. "Network Capital in a Multi-Level World: Getting Support in Personal Communities." Forthcoming in Social Capital: Theory and Research, edited by Nan Lin, Karen Cook and Ronald Burt. Chicago: Aldine DeGruyter, 2000 http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/wellman/publications/networkcapital/article.htm

Wolfe, Alan. "Developing Civil Society: Can the Workplace Replace Bowling?" The Responsive Community (Spring 1998): 41-47. http://www.gwu.edu/ccps/rcq/rcq82.html