Far-reaching analysis by the author of the Information Age trilogy
("The Rise of the Network Society", not reviewed, etc.) of the
Internet's birth and its impact on a range of human activities,
including business, social relationships, and politics. Castells
(Planning and Sociology/Univ. of California, Berkeley) begins his
study by looking at the creation of the Internet, developed not by
business but in government institutions, universities, think tanks,
and research centers: environments that fostered freedom of
thinking and innovation. Its origins, he points out, are what have
given the Internet its most distinctive features, openness in
technical architecture and social forms and uses, and business
built upon these features when it became the driving force behind
the Internet's rapid expansion in the 1990s. Castells examines the
new economy in some detail, looking at the relationship between the
Internet and capital markets, changes in employment practices, and
networking as a management tool. With a new economy based on the
culture of innovation, risk, and expectations, Castells sees the
emergence of a new kind of business cycle characterized by
volatile, information-driven financial markets. Turning to the
impact of the Internet on social relationships, he notes a new
pattern of sociability, "networked individualism," in which
individuals build their networks on- and offline on the basis of
values, interests, and projects. Castells observes that while the
Internet has the potential to strengthen democracy through
broadening the sources of information and enabling greater
citizenship participation, it has at the same time contributed
greatly to the politics of scandal. He also looks at unresolved
issues of privacy and security, describing the Internet as
"contested terrain, where the new, fundamental battle for freedom
in the Information Age is being fought." In his sobering final
chapter, the author studies the divide between peoples and regions
that operate in the digital world and those that cannot. Absorbing
history-but, with the jargon of academic sociology, an arduous
read. (Kirkus Reviews)
Manuel Castells is one of the world's leading thinkers on the new information age, hailed by
The Economist as "the first significant philosopher of cyberspace," and by
Christian Science Monitor as "a pioneer who has hacked out a logical, well-documented, and coherent picture of early 21st century civilization, even as it rockets forward largely in a blur." Now, in
The Internet Galaxy, this brilliantly insightful writer speculates on how the Internet will change our lives.
Castells believes that we are "entering, full speed, the Internet Galaxy, in the midst of informed bewilderment." His aim in this exciting and profound work is to help us to understand how the Internet came into being, and how it is affecting every area of human life--from work, politics, planning and development, media, and privacy, to our social interaction and life in the home. We are at ground zero of the new network society. In this book, its major commentator reveals the Internet's huge capacity to liberate, but also its ability to marginalize and exclude those who do not have access to it. Castells provides no glib solutions, but asks us all to take responsibility for the future of this new information age.
The Internet is becoming the essential communication and information medium in our society, and stands alongside electricity and the printing press as one of the greatest innovations of all time. The Internet Galaxy offers an illuminating look at how this new technology will influence business, the economy, and our daily lives.
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