The Rise of the Network Society - Couverture souple

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.

Manuel Castells describes the accelerating pace of innovation and social transformation. He examines the processes of globalization that threaten to make redundant whole countries and peoples excluded from informational networks. He investigates the culture, institutions, and organizations of the network enterprise and the concomitant transformation of work and employment. He shows that in the advanced economies production is now concentrated on an educated section of the population aged between 25 and 40. He suggests that the effect of this accelerating trend may not be mass unemployment but the extreme flexibilization of work and individualization of labor, and, in consequence, a highly segmented social structure.

This new edition of The Rise of the Network Society has been substantially modified and details the new social and economic developments brought by the Internet and the ′new economy′. The volume has been updated throughout to take account of changes since its original publication.

"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.