Rosenblum creates a compelling narrative during her latest title, Good Neighbors : The Democracy of Everyday Life.The importance of those individuals that live near us has been decreased in importance over the course of the last thirty years. There have been a number of titles that have dealt with the ramifications that this lack of community has had (most prominently, Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone), but this Rosenblum text showcases the importance of polarizing events like Hurricane Katrina. The specific actions that are taken by a neighborhood are likely to change depending on the stakeholders holding power in the area and the populations that are most impacted by these situations. This means that things can become very dire (as was the case in the days immediately following 9/11 or Pearl Harbor), or they could lead towards greater harmony among individuals (natural disasters including the Deepwater Oil Spill).
The smaller actions that are taken at lower levels of community (county politics, city happenings, or even those actions taken by members of a neighborhood or set of city blocks) are what keeps the overall democratic fervor of the United States strong. If we lose the democracy of these smaller sorts of actions (such as help with book review) by a neighbor, the ramifications of that happening will reverberate through all higher levels of political life. This text revises the discussions made hundreds of years ago in the treatises discussing the natural state of humanity to create a new framework for how individuals should expect people to act in every day interactions. Rosenblum moves past the discussions of the tabula rasa to create something that is extremely useful for any current student of American government. In this text, Rosenblum is able to provide some information about the agents of political socialization.
Good Neighbors : The Democracy of Everyday Life by Nancy L. Rosenblum / Princeton Press / http://press.princeton.edu/ / https://www.facebook.com/PrincetonUniversityPress/
Good Neighbors : The Democracy of Everyday Life
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