The Center for Great Plains Studies is teaming up with the E.N. Thompson Forum on World Issues for a talk by social entrepreneur and coauthor of "The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again" Shaylyn Romney Garrett.

About the book:

"Dur ing the Gilded Age of the late 1800s, America was highly individualistic, starkly unequal, fiercely polarized, and deeply fragmented, just as it is today. However as the twentieth century opened, America became-slowly, unevenly, but steadily-more egalitarian, more cooperative, more generous; a society on the upswing, more focused on our responsibilities to one another and less focused on our narrower self-interest. Sometime during the 1960s, however, these trends reversed, leaving us in today 's disarray.

A sweeping analysis of economic, social, political, a nd cultural trends over the past century, The Upswing demonstrates how we have gone from an individualistic "I" society to a more communitari an "We" society and then back again. These lessons of history could no t be more relevant today, providing urgent and revelatory insights on how we can once more turn the tide toward "We," thereby becoming a stron ger, more unified nation."

With Robert D. Putnam, bestselling autho r of "Bowling Alone" and "Our Kids."