Patterns of Social Capital: Stability and Change in Historical Perspective (Studies in Interdisciplinary History)

Societies work best where citizens trust their fellow citizens, work cooperatively for common goals, and thus share a civic culture. The accumulation of reciprocal trust, as demonstrated by voluntary efforts to create common goods, builds social capital and contributes to effective government. This volume advances the study of social capital across chronological and geographical space. It examines voluntary associations, comparatively and cross-culturally, as indicators of citizen readiness for civic engagement. This book is ultimately about the pattern of social and civic interactions in past times, and how these patterns may no longer exist. Edited By Robert I. Rotberg ; Contributors, Gene Brucker ... [et Al.]. Derived From Articles Published In Two Special Issues Of The Journal Of Interdisciplinary History, Xxix (1999), 3 & 4--verso T.p. Includes Bibliographical References. In the fifth chapter of Making Democracy Work, Putnam argues that the origins of civic society in modern Italy can be traced back to the age of the communes (twelfth to fifteenth centuries) in its northern and central regions.