F. Bacon, History of the reign of King Henry the seventh (1626)
P. Lively, Passing on (1989)
F. Mount, Tears of the Rajas (2015)
I've spent the last few years worrying about the decline of our great institutions (broadly defined). I feel that the many and variegated assaults on those community networks like the Church or the Masons or the Rotary or Working Mens' clubs are going to be disastrous when the demographics play through. I'd extend that to different kinds of institutions like the BBC and even the loss of institutional control in, inter alia, local government, education and major companies. I think it's relatively overlooked. You can't build a community without continuity and while I applaud the specific work that is brilliant, I think without the rootedness and the breadth that bigger organisations bring, we have a major social problem. Putnam basically argues a slice of this (about bottom up participation) much better, with graphs. It was great, though really really depressing.
