Best known as the author of Bowling Alone, Robert D. Putnam now offers a bit of hope to readers despairing over the breakdown of civil society. Through a combination of rigorous sociological research and well-constructed narrative, he argues that America can return to a more communitarian “we” society just as we did in the years following the unequal, individualistic “I” society of the Gilded Age of the late 1800s.  As a person with libertarian sensibilities, Putnam’s faith in communitarianism makes me nervous, but he makes a compelling case for the value and power of certain “we”-based solutions.