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Where the book most shamefully falls down is placing the "urban tribe" within any larger context of social trends... his topic needs a journalist, or a sociologist, someone to dig through the data, the research. Someone to conduct their own studies to probe unanswered questions. Someone to situate this within other parallel social trends (fewer children per family, growing numbers of the aged, etc.).

I think Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone is the book that provides a larger context in which this work can be placed.

Drawing his research from the DDB Needham Life Style surveys of 25 years, Putnam conclusively demonstrates the growing social disengagement of American society. While I haven't a had chance to read the book [it's in my wish list], it seems quite certain that the above mentioned emerging force is part of that larger trend.

The dominant theme is simple: For the first two-thirds of the 20th century a powerful tide bore American into ever deeper engagement in the life of their communities, but a few decades ago – silently and without warning – that tide reversed and we were overtaken by a treacherous rip current. Without at first noticing, we have been pulled apart from one another and from our communities over the last third of the century.

Breaking Up America: Advertisers and the New Media World by Joseph Turow is only on my wish list, so I can't exactly recommend it. But it looks like it goes into some of the issues and gets good reviews. Definite slant towards the marketing side of things though. But the marketing world has a wealth of data on this sort of thing, so its worth exploring.

Speed Tribes : Days and Night's with Japan's Next Generation by Karl T. Greenfeld is an excellent book, that sort of addresses the issue, and is both interesting and entertaining, but is journalism not academic. Be warned though, I read it a few years back, might be dated now.

I have wanted to like books about these sorts
of topics, I really have. But they've all fallen far
short of the mark for me. Bowling Alone, as
mentioned, is the best shot, but it is beginning
to be feel oddly dated despite its conclusions
being primarily related as long-term trends...
and I think that it misses the mark to a certain
degree. There was a book (its name escapes
me) written a year or two afterward that rebuffs
a lot of the positions put forward in Bowling
Alone. It was also a bit academic and
meaningless... mostly saying that the metrics
used for Bowling Alone can't be expected to
show continued public engagement.

Then came David Brooks' Bobos in Paradise.
And now this Tribes book. I'm very sad to hear
how anecdotal the book is. That's not very
interesting to me.

[[ replies or followups should cc to my email,
because i'm not a frequent site visitor (this is
my first visit) and I dunno if i'll check back ]]

Funny - your posts always come at the right time. This fall I'm working on a person-centered ethnography that looks at the cultural influences on late-20s/early 30s women who are making (or not)their "life" decisions later. I'll let you know if I come across anything interesting.

Peter, while I respect your opinion about my book, I have to remind you of one important fact about your critique: I am rubber, you are glue. It bounces off me and sticks to you.

This is an important context for your comments that I think your readers are missing.

I too would like to read the book you describe, Peter.

Another one sort of tangential to this genre is Cultural Creatives which I got part way through and then set down, probably never to return to. Did you read that one, Peter?

And happy birthday, by the way. :)

For those who didn't click on "Ethan Watters" and go to Watters.com, it's a bridal store. So it's unlikely that commenter was Ethan Watters.

Hm, I should read Bowling Alone, so I can discover Putnam's opinion of our present lifestyle.

> but a few decades ago – silently and without
> warning – that tide reversed and we were
> overtaken by a treacherous rip current. Without
> at first noticing, we have been pulled apart
> from one another and from our communities

Guess I don't have to. A treacherous rip current? And this guy conducts surveys for a living?

Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone is a bit dated, but I do recommend his new book, Democracies In Flux: The Evolution of Social Capital In Contemporary Society.

On Ethan's book (and, as disclosure, he, Po Bronson and I were in a writer's group together during our pursuit of MFAs in creative writing), I think, Peter, that you raise some very good points while assuming that the word "journalist" and writing a book that is largely observational equate to the same function. It is the reflective effort Ethan put in that should be measured, and I think it is wanting. On the other hand, I am not so sure this is really a trend or sociologically important, as these "tribes" exist in many contexts, not just close proximity or among singles. There are many instances of small-group ties in society, such as among young parents who are removed from their extended families, and the lengthening of lifespans suggests that there will be a longer period of singleness on average as a simple demographic result.

We've been watching an "urban tribe" on TV for 10 years, in "Friends." These groups may find themselves fascinating, but when a long-running sitcom describes their lifestyle, it hardly seems novel.

I was thrilled to find your review and the Salon article ( http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2003/10/13/tribes/ ) on "Urban Tribes." I've been reading the book and it makes me want to scream. Why I haven't stopped reading is a testament to my own neuroses that I won't go into here. Talk about milking an article for all it's worth. I read the article when it came out in the Times Mag and I thought that even that was stretching, making something of nothing; nothing being, "Hey check this out. Straight white overeducated people in their thirties who aren't married tend to hang out - wait, here's the beauty part - in GROUPS!!!" I'm halfway through the book, and I find myself constantly shaking my head at the chutspah (the bad kind, not the good kind, E) he had to propose and then to write it, and that he and folks at Bloomasbury had to give it that pretentious pseudiosociopsychological subtitle and promote it as some kind of cultural study. But what else can you do when you've got a memoir without any juice and a study without any facts?
"Urban Tribes" is a waste of invaluable trees, just as is, come to think of it, the yearly burning of a big man in the desert.

Do you categorically dismiss ethnography as a research tool?

Of course not. I studied anthropology, and understand it's value. I even wrote a post a bit back called, "Why Anthropology Matters," and it's all about the power of ethnography.

But in no way is Watters' work good "ethnography." It's not rigorous or deep. It's shallow journalism and ho-hum memoirism.

Keep the good work.

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