The Ladd Report

Ladd's book is nice reading and it does serve to balance out Putnam's work "Bowling Alone." I attended an NCA conference where Putnam was a featured lunchtime speaker. I bought his book and was surprised that he chose to play so fast and loose with the numbers. What I felt was that Putnam uncovered some databases and started working on how all of it could be tied together, but many of his charts and graphs lack any semblance of continuity. The data are often not from the same time periods and the scales on many of the graphs totally lack a Y-axis descriptor. In some cases, the lines are deceptive in the graphs.In any case, Ladd does a less flamboyant, but equally compelling, job at inspecting the state of American social repsonsibility in his report. This book lacks the same PR machine that Putnam appears to have behind his book (maybe Putnam's title and cover are flashier?), but I found it to be a more sobering read. Please, before you go citing Putnam in any of your own literature, buy and read this book first.

This book is a must for any waiting for Putnam's Bowling Alone. It is straightforward and honest--examining the data that does and does not support Ladd's theories. On the whole, it is a good source with excellent figures that leaves the reader with an optimistic outlook about our current situation as well as our future as a "nation of joiners"