Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis

Robert D. Putnam

Mar 2015 · Sold by Simon and Schuster

About this ebook

A New York Times bestseller and “a passionate, urgent” (The New Yorker) examination of the growing inequality gap from the bestselling author of Bowling Alone: why fewer Americans today have the opportunity for upward mobility.

Central to the very idea of America is the principle that we are a nation of opportunity. But over the last quarter century we have seen a disturbing “opportunity gap” emerge. We Americans have always believed that those who have talent and try hard will succeed, but this central tenet of the American Dream seems no longer true or at the least, much less true than it was.

In Our Kids, Robert Putnam offers a personal and authoritative look at this new American crisis, beginning with the example of his high school class of 1959 in Port Clinton, Ohio. The vast majority of those students went on to lives better than those of their parents. But their children and grandchildren have faced diminishing prospects. Putnam tells the tale of lessening opportunity through poignant life stories of rich, middle class, and poor kids from cities and suburbs across the country, brilliantly blended with the latest social-science research.

“A truly masterful volume” (Financial Times), Our Kids provides a disturbing account of the American dream that is “thoughtful and persuasive” (The Economist). Our Kids offers a rare combination of individual testimony and rigorous evidence: “No one can finish this book and feel complacent about equal opportunity” (The New York Times Book Review).

Ratings and reviews

This is a great explanation of the causes of key problems facing the American society, such as mental illness, drug addiction, and inequality. The main insight is that breakdown of nuclear family has significantly hampered the life chances of American children, more so in black communities, but also increasingly in white and Hispanic ones. Children raised by single parents, by stepdads or in abusive environments have worse educational outcomes, lower chances of finding a decent job, higher rates of mental disorder and addiction, higher rates of early pregnancy, and are less likely to establish nuclear families themselves. As the share of nuclear families has been on decline, so has been the incidence of such problems. Unfortunately, the elites have played its part in making things worse by discounting the importance of nuclear family and condoning risky sexual behaviors contributing to its breakdown.

About the author

Robert D. Putnam is the Malkin Research Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University and a former Dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government. Nationally honored as a leading humanist and a renowned scientist, he has written fourteen books, including the bestselling Our Kids and Bowling Alone, and has consulted for the last four US Presidents. In 2012, President Obama awarded him the National Humanities Medal, the nation’s highest honor for contributions to the humanities. His research program, the Saguaro Seminar, is dedicated to fostering civic engagement in America. Visit RobertDPutnam.com.