Today we wind up our preview of the new (Summer) issue of the Claremont Review of Books. with Bradley Watson’s “Yesterday Once More.” Professor Watson reviews Robert D. Putnam and Shaylyn Romney Garrett’s The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again.
Professor Putman is the prominent Harvard professor and author of Bowling Alone. Garrett describes herself as “a writer, speaker, and changemaker pursuing connection, community, and a world built on belonging.” Their book has been described as “a magnificent and visionary book” and “a must-read for those who wonder how we can reclaim our nation’s promise.”
That’s all I needed to know to infer that the book was not for me, but I greatly enjoyed Professor Watson’s review. It opens:
There’s not much wrong with America that more progressivism can’t fix, according to Robert D. Putnam and Shaylyn Romney Garrett’s The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again. Despite its impressive data sets and clever graphing, The Upswing proffers progressivism as the solution to our problems without examining progressivism’s role in creating those problems, a prescription not for a cure but for frustration and bewilderment.
Whole thing here.
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