Castells - The information age: economy, society, and culture. 1, The rise of the network society

The Information Age

Economy, Society, and Culture

Volume I
The Rise of the Network Society

We live today in a period of intense and puzzling transformation, signalling perhaps a move beyond the industrial era altogether. Yet where are the great sociological works that chart this transition? Hence the importance of Manuel Castells multivolume work, in which he seeks to chart the social and economic dynamics of the information age [It] is bound to be a major reference source for years to come. (Anthony Giddens, The Times Higher Education Supplement)

A brief review cannot do it justice. No other scholar has approached the subject of the information age in as engaging and innovative a way as this author. Strongly recommended for academic libraries. (Choice)

A little over a decade since its first publication, the hypotheses set out in Manuel Castells groundbreaking trilogy have largely been verified. In a substantial new preface to the first volume in the series, Castells demonstrates, in the light of major world trends, how the network society has now fully risen on a global scale.

The book discusses how the global economy is now characterized by the almost instantaneous flow and exchange of information, capital, and cultural communication. These flows order and condition both consumption and production. The networks themselves reflect and create distinctive cultures. Both they and the traffic they carry are largely outside national regulation. Our dependence on the new modes of informational flow gives to those in a position to control them enormous power to control us. The main political arena is now the media, and the media are not politically answerable.

Based on research in the USA, Asia, Latin America, and Europe, Castells formulates a systematic theory of the information society and details the new social and economic developments brought by the Internet and the new economy.

Table of Contents for Volumes II and III of Manuel Castells The Information Age: Economy, Society, and Culture

Volume II: The Power of Identity

Our World, our Lives

1 Communal Heavens: Identity and Meaning in the Network Society

2 The Other Face of the Earth: Social Movements against the New Global Order

3 The Greening of the Self: The Environmental Movement

4 The End of Patriarchalism: Social Movements, Family, and Sexuality in the Information Age

5 Globalization, Identification, and the State: A Powerless State or a Network State?

6 Informational Politics and the Crisis of Democracy

Conclusion: Social Change in the Network Society

Volume III: End of Millennium

A Time of Change

1 The Crisis of Industrial Statism and the Collapse of the Soviet Union

2 The Rise of the Fourth World: Informational Capitalism, Poverty, and Social Exclusion

3 The Perverse Connection: the Global Criminal Economy

4 Development and Crisis in the Asian Pacific: Globalization and the State

5 The Unification of Europe: Globalization, Identity, and the Network State

Conclusion: Making Sense of our World

This second edition with a new preface first published 2010
2010 Manuel Castells
Edition history: Blackwell Publishing Ltd (1e, 1996), Blackwell Publishing Ltd (2e, 2000)

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Castells, Manuel, 1942
The rise of the network society/Manuel Castells. 2nd ed., with a new pref.
p. cm. (Information age; v. 1)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4051-9686-4 (pbk.: alk. paper) 1. Information technologyEconomic aspects. 2. Information society. 3. Information networks. 4. Technology and civilization. I. Title.
HC79.I55C373 2010
303.4833dc22
2009009312

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

For Emma Kiselyova-Castells,

without whose love, work, and support

this book would not exist

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