The Rise of the Network Society - (Information Age) 2nd Edition by Manuel Castells (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

This first book in Castells' groundbreaking trilogy, with a substantial new preface, highlights the economic and social dynamics of the information age and shows how the network society has now fully risen on a global scale.

• Groundbreaking volume on the impact of the age of information on all aspects of society
• Includes coverage of the influence of the internet and the net-economy
• Describes the accelerating pace of innovation and social transformation
• Based on research in the USA, Asia, Latin America, and Europe

From the Back Cover

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 enormous power to those in a position to control them 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'.

Review Quotes

Reviews of the Second Edition:

"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)

"Adam Smith explained how capitalism worked, and Karl Marx explained why it didn't. Now the social and economic relations of the Information Age have been captured by Manuel Castells." (Wall Street Journal)

"So far, the person who has straddled the world of social theory and Silicon Valley most successfully is Manuel Castells. Castells enjoys a growing reputation as the first significant philosopher of cyberspace." (The Economist)

"A must-read." (Wired)

"This book goes a considerable way to helping us make sense of today's global information economy and our place in it." (Financial Times)

About the Author

Manuel Castells is Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Planning at the University of California, Berkeley. He is also the Wallis Annenberg Chair in Communication Technology and Society at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, and Research Professor at the Open University of Catalonia in Barcelona. He is Distinguished Visiting Professor of Technology and Society at M.I.T., and Distinguished Visiting Professor of Internet Studies at Oxford University. He is the recipient of numerous academic awards, including the Guggenheim Fellowship, C. Wright Mills Award, the Robert and Helen Lynd Award from the American Sociological Association, and the Ithiel de Sola Pool Award from the American Political Science Association. He is a Fellow of the European Academy, a Fellow of the Spanish Royal Academy of Economics, and a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy. He has received 14 honorary doctorates from universities around the world. He has authored 22 books, among which is the trilogy The Information Age: Economy, Society, and Culture, first published by Blackwell in 1996-8, and translated into 20 languages.