The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again

by Robert D. Putnam

Thus, measures of the drive for racial equality in the quality, quantity, and integration of education also show a clear “foot off the gas” pattern, with progress being made in the first two thirds of the century, followed by stagnation beginning in roughly the 1970s—precisely when America began its downward plunge from “we” to “I.”