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86th out of 568 books
—
754 voters
The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart
by
Bill Bishop
The untold story of why America is so culturally and politically divided
America may be more diverse than ever coast to coast, but the places where we live are becoming increasingly crowded with people who live, think, and vote as we do. This social transformation didn't happed by accident. We’ve built a country where we can all choose the neighborhood -- and religion and n...more
America may be more diverse than ever coast to coast, but the places where we live are becoming increasingly crowded with people who live, think, and vote as we do. This social transformation didn't happed by accident. We’ve built a country where we can all choose the neighborhood -- and religion and n...more
Hardcover, 384 pages
Published
May 7th 2008
by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
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Jul 20, 2008
Aaron
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
Church-going demographers
Recommended to Aaron by:
National Public Radio
Call it the "Election 2000" riddle: How is it that the country can be so fatally, psychotically split between the two irreconcilable extremes of Bush and Gore when everyone I know - literally everyone - is a Gore supporter except for my grandparents in Kerrville, TX, who took the Hobbit away from me when I was seven years old because they thought it was Satanic? The Big Sort suggests that for the first time in American history, the average person has the ability to choose where they want to live...more
Oct 03, 2008
Jennifer
marked it as to-read
Recommends it for:
strong right & left wing people & moderates too
Recommended to Jennifer by:
Daily Show, NPR
Shelves:
non-fiction,
politics
Arghhh :( this book is depressing me. I made it to chapter two, and then I realized, maybe it is not a good idea for me to read this right now, as the presidential election is using up enough of my political brain for the time being. I wish there were an answer to the party sorting this book chronicles. We need to be more open to listening to other viewpoints, and not just dismissing them summarily or tuning out because we don't agree or yelling over them so we cannot hear their thoughts. I also...more
5 likes · like · see review
Discusses the recent geographic re-alignment of Americans in the past 25 or so years and how political parties have either benefited or lost from this realignment.
The book was spot-on with the social realignments that have been sweeping the country. I have experienced this phenomenon myself at both the macro and micro level. The book went into grave detail with the various causes of the re-alignment and provided proof with many examples. However, in the end I was looking for more insight or pred...more
The book was spot-on with the social realignments that have been sweeping the country. I have experienced this phenomenon myself at both the macro and micro level. The book went into grave detail with the various causes of the re-alignment and provided proof with many examples. However, in the end I was looking for more insight or pred...more
3 likes · like · see review
1. Is it better for a child to demonstrate independence or respect for elders?
2. Obedience or self-reliance?
3. Curiosity or good manners?
4. To be considerate or well behaved?
If you chose respect, obedience, good manners, and being well behaved, you have an authoritarian parenting style and you likely vote Republican.
If you chose independence, self-reliance, curiosity, and being considerate, you have a nurturant parenting style and you likely vote Democratic.
According to the research by polit...more
2. Obedience or self-reliance?
3. Curiosity or good manners?
4. To be considerate or well behaved?
If you chose respect, obedience, good manners, and being well behaved, you have an authoritarian parenting style and you likely vote Republican.
If you chose independence, self-reliance, curiosity, and being considerate, you have a nurturant parenting style and you likely vote Democratic.
According to the research by polit...more
1 like · like · see review
in 1976, 26% of americans lived in landslide counties (counties where the election was won or lost by a 20% margin). By the 2008 election, that had grown to 48%. Bill Bishop argues that in the U.S. in the last generation there has been an enormous restructuring/migration/resorting of America according to values/lifestyle. That age, class, race, gender, are ideology revealing common denominators which are useless compared to county, zipcode, and neighborhood. There is no wage advantage to living...more
The premise of this book is that Americans are self-sorting themselves into like-minded communities, which in turn makes them become more extreme due to lack of experience with opposing viewpoints.
I started this book with high hopes, but quickly became suspicious. Why start the baseline at 1976? We have political data going back at least a century--if this were really a trend, shouldn't adding more data just back it up? So I did a little research and found this:
http://www.wcfia.harvard.edu/sites...more
I started this book with high hopes, but quickly became suspicious. Why start the baseline at 1976? We have political data going back at least a century--if this were really a trend, shouldn't adding more data just back it up? So I did a little research and found this:
http://www.wcfia.harvard.edu/sites...more
1 like · like · see review
It is difficult to find books on modern American polarization that are not awash with the author's political agenda - either through direct argumentation or through topical choices and politically charged rhetoric. This author let's us know on page one that he is a liberal. But that is the first and last evidence of the author's political bias. The rest of the book is a refreshingly objective documentary describing the increasingly partisan character of America, not just in our political instuti...more
Finished two non-fictions this weekend, one being The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-minded American is Tearing Us Apart, by Bill Bishop. Usually titles like these leave me lost so I don’t dare venture too far, but this one was (mostly) easy on the brain and actually quite interesting without being too preachy or difficult for someone who isn’t already in that particular field of study.
What I got out of it is that in America, we are sorting ourselves into communities of people who share th...more
What I got out of it is that in America, we are sorting ourselves into communities of people who share th...more
This is one of the most enlightening books about politics I've ever read. For forty years, Americans have been on the move, settling in cities, regions and neighborhoods heavily populated with people who are politically and culturally likeminded. Liberals went to big cities and inner-ring suburbs and to the two coasts. Conservatives moved to sprawling exurbs and the Sunbelt. Bishop convincingly argues that this trend has shaped our politics more than any single political figure or social movemen...more
Maybe because it's part of my job to understand how people think or what drives them to make certain decisions that The Big Sort has had such a big impact on my thinking.
Its thesis, in brief, is this: Since the 1970s, tens of millions of Americans have packed up and moved, largely for jobs. And when they do, they settle in neighborhoods where pretty nearly everyone is just like them: same outlook, same political leanings, same church-going habits (or not), same education level, same political pa...more
Its thesis, in brief, is this: Since the 1970s, tens of millions of Americans have packed up and moved, largely for jobs. And when they do, they settle in neighborhoods where pretty nearly everyone is just like them: same outlook, same political leanings, same church-going habits (or not), same education level, same political pa...more
I found this book fascinating. The premise is that Americans have been moving into more and more homogenous neighborhoods and cities over the past 30+ years. College educated people move to certain cities, Democrats are more likely to live in certain places, Republicans in others. Bishop's theory is that this polarizes is even further, as we become more extreme when surrounded by only like-minded individuals.
It was an interesting read, particularly in our current political climate.
It was an interesting read, particularly in our current political climate.
I'm really glad I read this book. It gave me a lot to think about.
It's about how people have a natural tendancy to want to associate with like-minded people - "people like us." Over the past 50 years, it has become more and more possible to associate exclusively with people who share our political and religious opinions and values by choosing where we will live, what church we attend, where we get our news, and so forth. As a result of sorting ourselves into these extremely homogenous groups, we...more
It's about how people have a natural tendancy to want to associate with like-minded people - "people like us." Over the past 50 years, it has become more and more possible to associate exclusively with people who share our political and religious opinions and values by choosing where we will live, what church we attend, where we get our news, and so forth. As a result of sorting ourselves into these extremely homogenous groups, we...more
Reflecting on the adage that all politics are local, Bill Bishop writes a detailed cultural, political and psychological analysis as to why Americans believe the things they do, vote they way they do, pray the way they do and buy the things they do. In The Big Sort, Bishop collaborates with a sociologist to understand why are cities are crumbling, our suburbs are gated and our politics are some of the most polarized they have been in generations. The Big Sort contains a wealth of statistical dat...more
"We were seeing ... a cultural shift powered by prosperity and economic security. Freed from want and worry, people were reordering their lives around their values, their tastes, and their beliefs. They were clustering in communities of like-mindedness ... " (12)
"Tradition, economic class and occupation, religious denomination, civic structures, and party politics -- the ways of life that had molded the country over the previous century -- were losing significance. The new society was more about...more
"Tradition, economic class and occupation, religious denomination, civic structures, and party politics -- the ways of life that had molded the country over the previous century -- were losing significance. The new society was more about...more
I had to read this because I assigned it to my students to read this week and because the author is coming to visit my class next week. It's a great book on understanding the nature of political polarization in the American public and in our political institutions. The author is a journalist, but he bases his arguments on sociological and political science research. His basic argument (which is supported independently by a number of other studies done in the last few years) is that our political...more
READ THIS BOOK. I mean.. if, like me, you have a penchant for reading geeky, wonky political books that try to analyze where our nation is politically and how we got this way, this is one you can't miss.
Essentially, Bishop starts with the generally-undisputed observation that our politics have become increasingly polarized (our President's repeated pleas for Hope and Change not withstanding). In Congress, especially, Republicans are REALLY conservative, and the moderate Dems are few and far betw...more
Essentially, Bishop starts with the generally-undisputed observation that our politics have become increasingly polarized (our President's repeated pleas for Hope and Change not withstanding). In Congress, especially, Republicans are REALLY conservative, and the moderate Dems are few and far betw...more
Perhaps the BEST book I have read to date on the current partisan/social divide in this country, how people are in essence "sorting" themselves to live and increasingly only interact with like-minded individuals. The more the camps self-segregate, the more the positions harden and this leads to more and more rigid and perhaps extreme positions - and views on the other side. The death of the moderate, this hyper-partisanship, combined with a black/white religious view has made our political syste...more
If the Debt Ceiling Debacle made you wonder why politicians can't work together to solve our country's problems, this book provides a very plausible explanation. The author says that, over the past 30+ years, Americans have sorted themselves politically, geographically, and economically into like-minded, almost tribal, communities that have no knowledge of how the other "tribe" lives. This clustering into "homogeneous units," because of group dynamics, leads to increasing polarization and extrem...more
I like to mix it up with people who do not share my worldview. If Bill Bishop is right, this makes me an American oddity.
According to this book, since the 1960s, Americans have been sorting themselves out into like-minded tribal communities, whose members reinforce one another's already-existing views, attitudes, and prejudices. The end product of this "Big Sort" is an increasingly polarized body politic, more ideologically pure parties, the urban-rural electoral split I've remarked on several d...more
According to this book, since the 1960s, Americans have been sorting themselves out into like-minded tribal communities, whose members reinforce one another's already-existing views, attitudes, and prejudices. The end product of this "Big Sort" is an increasingly polarized body politic, more ideologically pure parties, the urban-rural electoral split I've remarked on several d...more
I think I need to leave Seattle after reading this book.
Polarization in our political climate is a topic I've been interested in since President Obama spoke about it at my college graduation in 2010. In his speech, he explained that an understanding of diverse ideas is necessary for a civic society, a process of which requires individuals to look beyond sources of thought that reinforce their pre-existing opinions. This book goes a bit further to explore the history of polarization between the 1...more
Polarization in our political climate is a topic I've been interested in since President Obama spoke about it at my college graduation in 2010. In his speech, he explained that an understanding of diverse ideas is necessary for a civic society, a process of which requires individuals to look beyond sources of thought that reinforce their pre-existing opinions. This book goes a bit further to explore the history of polarization between the 1...more
Kind of cheating a bit, as I didn't finish the last two chapters. But after reading several hundred pages, I felt like I'd gotten the point, no need to keep hammering it in. There were some really interesting little gems in this book about political polarization in the US - for example, did you know that, generally speaking, gerrymandering has had little effect on voting at all? Or that democrats are more likely to be socially isolated? (Because they are more likely to live in cities).
But as a...more
But as a...more
Like many books of journalistic endeavor, The Big Sort has some issues. It takes a thesis and states it over and over again in slightly different ways, and has decidedly random supporting sections that don't always tie together very well. But those issues aside, this was a really interesting read. The data work was easy to understand, the supporting anecdotes were more intriguing than not, and it really seemed to reflect conditions that I could see on a day-to-day basis. As I was reading, I coul...more
Intriguing title, disappointing delivery... where do I start?
Perhaps with the first 250 (of 300) pages, which repeats the same thing three or four times. There's a "Big Sort" going on, and it's suspicious. The author (barely) managed to convince me, but that doesn't mean I want to be convinced several times. This section should have been 100, 150 pages max.
The real decent ideas about why sorting ourselves into homogeneous groups is meaningful doesn't occur until the last 50 pages, and even then...more
Perhaps with the first 250 (of 300) pages, which repeats the same thing three or four times. There's a "Big Sort" going on, and it's suspicious. The author (barely) managed to convince me, but that doesn't mean I want to be convinced several times. This section should have been 100, 150 pages max.
The real decent ideas about why sorting ourselves into homogeneous groups is meaningful doesn't occur until the last 50 pages, and even then...more
This book goes along way in explaining the polarization of the voting public in the last 30 years. People like to hang out and live next to people who are like them. With the easy mobility of the last thirty years people have moved to areas that have people just like themselves. This is freedom of choice in action. Who doesn't want to be around cool people. Unfortunately that means people are exposed overwhelmingly to ideas and opinions that are close to their own. The by product of this is that...more
The book's basic premise of how people sort themselves out by their politics, or to better put it, seeking out others who share their same views, is an interesting idea. It is also an idea that can help explain what we see in the United States as a red and blue divide. Bishop's books is well-researched, so it has that going for it looking over things like Census records and Pew studies, two examples of reputable sources. However, this book is extremely dry to read. The first three chapters are p...more
The premise: since the 1960s, Americans have been self-selecting themselves into more and more isolated groups of like-minded individuals, both on the Left and the Right, as a result of peoples' cultural preferences. As a result, people of different minds mix less with each other, so a Democrat may be able to legitimately say "How can anyone not like this policy/disagree with this/think otherwise? I don't know ANYONE who doesn't think X, Y, or Z", as can a Republican--and they can both be tellin...more
I was somewhat familiar with Bill Bishop's argument, having read his stories & blogs, spoken with him a few times, and even heard him on NPR, so I was surprised by how much more powerful the argument was when organized into the coherent structure of this book. I'm still pondering the notion of whether we can make certain types of social change - to our schools for instance - if we are hellbound to microsort ourselves into communities of likeminded individuals, and if such democratic institut...more
If you've ever wondered "why can't [other political party] understand where I'm coming from?" - read this book. Bishop marshals research on politics, demographics, religion, and more to support his theory of the "Big Sort" - the increasing tendency for Americans to self-select into homogenous social groups. The increasing financial autonomy and ability of Americans to select the communities that they live in, worship in, and vote in has led to an increase in partisanship and an unwillingness to...more
Using sets of publicly available data the authors demonstrate how American has segregated itself into neighborhoods where everyone adheres to the same political principles. The lack of balanced positions on political issues within these neighborhoods has contributed to the toxic political landscape that now governs much of America's political landscape. Those who dare offer an opinion that is not completely inline with the surrounding majority is deemed un-American.
This homogeneous collection of...more
This homogeneous collection of...more
FWIW I thought this was a really important idea - the notion that our current political polarization is tied to a self-sorting into political and cultural "tribes" that has taken place in the last twenty-five / thirty years or so. The sorting is not just virtual but also geographic - people physically move to communities that reflect their own values and cultural tastes. There is no question that folks are searching for belonging, and that they are "digging in" to like-minded communities. All ki...more
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“After a few Republicans on the Houston city council supported the Democratic majority's proposal that stalled cars be towed immediately off the city's notoriously clotted freeways, local Republican officials promised retribution. 'We're not looking for council members who are going to go along and get along,' said Jared Woodfill, chairman of the Harris County Republican Party. 'We're looking for council members who are going to stand up for conservative values.' Surely, political ideology has teetered over some high cliff when towing can be described as a 'value.' What's next, a doctrine of potholes, the water pressure credo?”
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The overall concept of the book sounds interesting, although selectively taking out race and focusing hard on religion seems rather ar...more
28 de Ago 23:45