About Professor Putnam
Robert D. Putnam is Malkin Professor of Public Policy at Harvard, and Visiting Professor, University of Manchester has written more than a dozen books, including Bowling Alone and Making Democracy Work, both among the most cited publications in the social sciences in the last half century.
In 2005 he initiated The Saguro Seminar: Civic Engagement In America, an ongoing initiative aimed at developing recommendations for strategies to help foster the growth of a stronger society. Bettertogether, the resulting book, describes a dozen promising new examples of social capital-building in communities across America, including a mentoring and reading programme that brings together the elderly and primary school children to the benefit of both as well as broadening the purpose of public libraries to act as community hubs.
His recent work has focussed on religion in contemporary Britain and America, immigration, ethnic diversity and social cohesion.
About the discussion this morning
To be honest I felt that had the Big Society team read Putnam's work it wouldn't be on its fourth re-launch. It is not about a Big Society or a Bigger Society, it is about creating social networks for all our people.