Manuel's book is a must read to build one's picture of the developments in society. I found it to be scholarly, yet very accessible and very important in incorporating the east as much as the west to obtain a global view.

I would suggest that this book is mandatory for any person aiming to have a picture of contemporary society, and it should be read along side other important contemporary works.

Bill Gates in his book "The Road Ahead" predicted information to be the most important thing of the modern age. I am totally convinced of that. But the main problem is to deal with the overflow of information. Want or not, you are stuffed with information all the time everywhere under the sky How should one analyse the information, which part should be taken, which should be left - that is the question. A broad summary of the impact of information and communication technology is presented by Manuel Castells in "The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture". The book contains detailed analysis of information, various technologies bringing it, ist influence on culture and society. I am writing a paper on "Information Management" and got tremendous help from this book. I hope this book would be translated in German and other foreign languages

Necesito revisar el libro "la era de la información" de Manuel CAstells, ya que es para un trabajo de la escuela, y lo más importante que va aser tomado en cuenta para la claificación final.

I would like to know if there is a spanish version of this book. Thank you for this information Patricia.

This book provides the clearest analysis of work in the new economy of anything I've read, using Silicon Valley as the prototypical region of the future of work. It cuts through all the hype, and analyzes both the region's dynamism, but also the reasons behind the volatility, insecurity, and rise in contract/temporary employment. It provides innovative and useful suggestions for ways of increasing security for workers in the region's labor market, while maintaining the region's dynamism. Should be read by every elected official and policy maker in the country, and anyone else concerned about the changing nature of work in the new economy.

The Internet is possibly the next discovery of fire, in terms of human impact. Instant, and potentially cost-free transfer of information TO all and any FROM all and any. A true equality of 'right to know'.
This book lays out the processes of how it came to be, and for that alone, it is an important work. It also sheds light on ways the Internet is in danger of controlling influences of business interests that may take away some of its most promising gifts.
The book is not an easy read, but is worth the effort.

Manuel Castells is, with no doubt, the leading figure in the sociology of information. That field has been the fastest rising area in the sociology. It deals with the interaction between IT, the economy, and society.
Manuel Castells secured his position with the book, ¡®The Information City¡¯ (1989). This book grounded the theoretical framework. His three volumes of ¡®Information Age¡¯ have been widely used as the textbook in the class. Those volumes have the rich depth and are well written, conclusive on each issue. But that trilogy is voluminous: about 1500 pages in total. If you prefer short but graphic, succinct introduction to the sociology of information, this is your pick. This book is based on the author¡¯s lecture held at Oxford Business School. So it¡¯s not conceived to be the systematic work but intended to orient the reader toward the basics of the field. He uses various live cases to illustrate the interaction between Internet, the economy, and society. The areas covered range from culture, new economy, virtual community, social movement, privacy, multimedia, and digital divide. Those are almost all topics tackled in the field. But this is not intended to set up serious theoretical basis in the field. If you are interested in such an attempt, I recommend James Slevin¡¯s ¡®The Internet and Society¡¯. But, as I mentioned in the review on that book, it requires the reader some basic understanding Giddens and other social theories, to get the nub of the book.

It is part of the conventional wisdom that the Internet affects all of our lives, is a key element in development of the 'new economy', and is becoming a major factor in political development. At the same time, how the Internet interacts with other influences and what social and technological trends are going on under the surface is not well understood. It is, however, so central to the development of our economy and society that it is essential to understand it.

Manuel Castells has produced a brilliant analysis of these issues. The book is written for both an academic and a general readership and meets the needs of both excellently, although some parts of it are reasonably hard work for the generalist. The reward, at least for this reader, is a far clearer understanding of the dynamics of development of our networked society and the issues that need to be confronted. It is essential reading for anyone concerned with economic or political development at any level from local community to global issues.

In style the book belongs to what I think of as the European tradition of clear and careful analysis and exposition, rather than the common American approach to business books of heavy reliance on drawing conclusions from examples derived from 'great name' companies. The result is a book that requires serious concentration in order to follow the complex, sometimes contradictory and paradoxical influences that the author elucidates for us.

It is directed primarily to the reader as citizen, rather than specifically aiming to help business people toward profitable application of Internet technology. In consequence, as well as providing a valuable overview of the dynamics of development of our national and global economy and society, it contains useful reflections on ethics and governance at the business level and also on the potential benefits and risks to the development of civil society nationally and internationally.

The author's starting point is that (the dot points following are slightly modified quotations excerpted from the 'Opening' to the book):
* The technology of the Internet provides the means of bringing together reliance on networks, dominant in private interaction, with the capacity for coordination of tasks and management of complexity, for which organizations have historically relied on hierarchical command and control.
* The logic, language and constraints of the Internet are not well understood beyond technological matters. Popular understanding is driven by myth, ideology and gossip more than by a realistic assessment of the issues.
* People, institutions, companies and society at large, transform technology by modifying and experimenting with it. The Internet transforms the way we communicate and do things and, by doing many things with the Internet, we transform the Internet itself.
* It follows that the Internet is a particularly malleable technology, susceptible of being deeply modified by its social practice, and leading to a whole range of potential social outcomes - to be discovered by experience, not proclaimed beforehand. Neither utopia nor dystopia, the Internet is the expression of ourselves - through a specific code of communication, which we must understand if we want to change our reality.

The first two chapters offer lessons from the history of the Internet and a description of the culture that gave rise to, and sustains it. Chapters 3 through 6 discuss e-business, the new economy, the concepts of virtual communities and networked society and key political issues of civil society, privacy and liberty. Chapter 7 is concerned with multimedia, while Chapters 8 and 9 are concerned with the geography of the Internet and the digital divide. There is an 8 page conclusion on the challenges of the network society, in which the mask of the analyst slips somewhat to reveal the passionate advocate of what Soros in The Crisis of Global Capitalism called the open society and to echo Laszlo's call in Macroshift for a 'fundamental revolution of consciousness'. Castells argues:

"Until we rebuild, both from the bottom up and from the top down, our institutions of governance and democracy, we will not be able to stand up to the fundamental challenges we are facing. And if democratic, political institutions cannot do it, no one else will or can."

This is the second volume of 'Information Age'. This volume deals with how the social movement has changed through internet and globalization.
The public sphere is where social movement projects itself. The internet has had great impact on the public sphere with its global reach. We's witnessed that kind of potential on the some handful of anti-globalization protest in recent years.
But what has changed is not only the way of protest. According to Touraine's typology, a social movement is defined by three principles: the movement's identity; its adversary; its vision or social model. Globalization transformed the identity of social movement. Zapatistas and recent environmental movements are the graphic examples. Now adversary is not confined to local government, but the government representing the interests of global agencies like TNCs. They oppose their specific identity and the well-being of society against the global adversary. The impact of these movements comes from their media presence and from their effective use of IT. Castells argues that the ability or inability of the state to cope with these challenges will largely condition the future of society in the 21st century.

Castells trilogy, The Information Age, was written in the late 20th century but it is really the first sociology classic of the 21st and, as such, comparable to the masterworks of Durkheim and Weber. The first audacious volume chronicled the rise of a new global order based on a network of information flows. Since Castells views the human species as essentially predatory, some remedial measures are needed to resist the injustices that will arise. This second volume is therefore prescriptive. A masterly presentation of the world's current social movements follows. The author's discussion of the affect of the internet on political action and political campaigns is especially useful. Despite the volatile subject matter, I thought that Castells never quite sacrificed his objectivity although a delicate balancing act does take place throughout the volume. This book and the previous one sometimes read like some great epic of science fiction but it is our own very real world in the 21st century that the author is discussing. As an introduction to our brave new planet, this book could hardly be bettered.

I would suggest this trilogy to anyone wondering what is going on in this world.Things are changing around us and this book trys to examine how people fit into the picture. Hi-tech is what we constantly here about but what about the social aspects ? People matter. This work points out that many will be excluded out of the global economy.These people who find they are being left behind or do not have any say will find ways to express themselves such as terrorist groups, cults, and other NGO's.Mr.Castelle points out important human nature elements in this new world order.

hall and castells examine numerous attempts to successfully create techo-cities like silicon valley around the world. they judge success to be the creation of an innovative milieu, an environment so mentally attractive that firms locate there regardless of cost. a.k.a. a Marshallian or Neo-Marshallian node.

Contains several examples of models of industrial and high-tech parks around the world. Discusses the strengths, weaknesses and future prospects of each park.

A think piece by a mid-level writer in her glory days.

This book compares the so-called "hacker work ethic" as compared to the old "Protestant work ethic," examining so-called hacker culture and their motivations for working and completing projects, as opposed to the world view of working "because you are supposed to." It makes a number of interesting observations, and points out that in our world, the pressure to "work, work, work" never seems to escape us, in spite of all the technological advances of our world designed to "make life easier."

It also points out that "true hackers" are willing to work at something in order to improve it and are not always motivated to do so by the almighty dollar. I long have worked with engineers who come in to work at 10 or 11 am but stay until almost midnight every day and never quite understood why until now. It's the desire to continue to tinker with and ultimately complete a project.

I will never be a "true hacker," since I lack the aptitude and ultimately patience to sit at a computer screen all hours of the day and night trying to solve programming problems, but books like these give me a much better understanding of the ones who are.

I've never read a clearer, more erudite, more persuasive demolition of the old Protestant Work Ethic than Pekka Himanen's essay in this book. And that clarity comes from being part of a new constituency - the hacker community - who are redefining what it is to be a passionate, active, creative, tool-wielding human being (ie, it's much more than just being a "worker").

And rather than the Hacker Ethic being the usual pizza-stained celebration of digital anarchism you find in hacker commentary, Himanen begins to construct a real and tangible politics out of the self-organising energies of hackerdom. What might the hacker ethic mean for how we build educational institutions, as communities of inquiry rather than job factories? For how we generate technological innovation, in ways that don't always depend on the furies of the market? For how we might provide social services amongst ourselves, rather than waiting for politicians and bureaucrats to deliver?

I suppose the only problem I have - and it's one I'm trying to answer with my own project, The Play Ethic (on the web) is this: why do we need to keep describing unalienated human productivity and creativity (which is what hackerdom, and other forms of modern behaviour, are) as "work"? Isn't this the last legacy of Calvin and Knox, still shaping our minds through controlling our vocabulary? Why not call it "play", and be done with it - that's play as defined by Sartre, "that action we do when we apprehend that we are truly free": or Schiller's, meaning that activity we do when we are (as adults) "fully human"?

Play also extends beyond the hacker community (still, as Pekka admits, predominantly male), and touches upon all the other "arts of living" that evade the patriarchal work ethic - in emotions, parent-child relationships, New Age spirituality, gender androgyny, ecological sensibilities. There is also a whole world of non-Christian theologies and traditions out there which place human creativity at their core, which could have been mentioned. (And what about Harold Bloom's cry for an American gnosticism in Omens of Millenium? That's just waiting for Richard Stallman and his cultic robes!)

But hell, that's the book *I'm* writing... In the meantime, The Hacker Ethic is the worst news that the New Economy's work ethic could ever have - which means, the best for all us. Put a copy on your pal's desk: the one with the nervous twitch and the grey pallor. And watch the passion come back into his/her face.

I should say up front that I'm not totally disinterested in the Hacker Ethic. I'm a media critic and author and I blurbed this book, something I don't do a lot. I did -- and am writing this review -- because I feel strongly that this is a very important book advancing a central idea -- the hacker ethic, profoundly misunderstood and demonized by the popular media, is important, both to politics and work. This isn't another in the avalanche of impenetrable cyber-culture books. It looks backwards as well as forwards, to the Protestant Ethic that has shaped many of our lives, and beyond, to the hacker joy and passion. The hacker ethic has trigger a true social and cultural revolution. Himanen (who I don't know) traces its roots, and perhaps more importantly, where it can take us. This is very important. If journalists, CEO's and others would read this book carefully, they might get ahead of the Net Revolution for once, instead of scrambling continuously to figure out where the world is going. If you want to know, this is a good place to start. It is also a very noble endeavor to finally give the hackers their due in the evolution of the modern world. It's not a big dense read either, which it easily could have been. It is a small book and moves quickly. It's ideas are accessible, and very, very convincing.

The Rise of the Network Society was on my reading list for school -- and I was looking forward to reading it, not only in the context of my class, but because the subject is an important one, especially regarding the distribution of information and knowledge in our society. Unfortunately, I was soon disappointed to find that Castells, with all his remarkable insight into the arts of communication, has not been able to go beyond the oh-so cumbersome turns of phrase typical of academic writing. I find myself turned off by the lingo, where I am truly interested in the subject; I resent having to plow my way through his phraseology, while I certainly do appreciate the research and energy he has invested in his work. There seems to be an ideal to academic writing that somewhat opposes the general trend of having knowledge and information made accessible to everyone. Or is it that Castells really means to restrict his writing (and being read) to the groves of Academe? If proving himself versed in the field is more important than getting the information out there, what does he have to teach us about the implications of a network society? That we should better cling to our own in-group, to only those who speak our language, whatever that is? If that is so, what change can we expect from being related through networks? If Castells intends to put into practice his belief that *observing, analyzing, and theorizing is a way of helping to build a different, better world* (p. 4), then he might as well start with generously offering his insights to the world he wants to see changed.

Manuel Castells takes the reader on an elliptical tour of the information age and how it will effect our society, economy, government and culture. The book is provocative; a thoughtful gem surfaces every ten pages or so. But you will have to wade through some turgid writing and a maze of academic references to get there. This is not the futuristic whimsy of an Alvin Toffler. An academic's academic, Manuel Castells remains conservatively close to the findings of his sociology peers.

After twenty years of search and investigations, Manuel Castells gathered many information (on the labour market, demography in the world...) borrowed from work and investigations of researchers and thus could describe the change of the world society. He put forwards the emergence of a new society: the information society which in its change has impacts on the structure of employment, the relations of the individuals to the medias and the organization of space by flows of information. This book is a mine of information and gives still more desire for reading the two following volumes. cindy