This is a horrible book and very hard to read. The author writes with long sentences that use big words throughout, that are not necessary in understanding his concepts. This book could have been written in half the words and you would have actually been able to comprehend it. VCR manuals read better than this book.

Many of the observations Prof. Catells made are valid, however the connection between information technology and the social problems are not very strong. The network states, global criminal society, wealth disparity, etc. are more or less the byproduct of globalization. Yes, information technology accelerates the rate of globalization. But would those social problems exist without information technology? Mostly likely yes. These phenomena are not new, they predate the advent of the Information Age (the World Wide Web and mass adoption of internet is a post-1990 phenomenon). Multinatioal organizations (or globalization) have been around for many decades, same goes for the North-South polical economic paradigm. So, attributing all these social problems to the Information Age (at least that is the impression I got out of it) may not be an accurate representation. Nonetheless, his trilogy does demonstrate the acute problem of a global digital divide, and he suggested some possible solutions in some of his other books.

I can¡¦t agree more with Castells¡¦s proposal of project identity, ¡§a blueprint of social values and institutional goals that appeals to a majority of citizens without excluding anybody, in principle". But I think it is applicable and proper only to those who have power and capacity to attain it. It is reasonable to imbue ¡§project identity¡¨ to those ¡§self-programming¡¨ producers, as well as to those nation-states that are capable of lunching a war just for their national or religious identity. But it could be harmful to suggest those generic labor give up ¡§resistant identity¡¨ while they are not yet organized or empowered. Not mention to those minority or aboriginal people, who could become extinct without ¡§resistant identity¡¨. This supplementary clarification might also be the answer why Castells put the proposal of ¡§project identity¡¨ primarily to the Europe Union.

This is not really a "1999" book, in case anyone is looking for the latest from Castells--rather it offers a translation of a collection of essays published in Spanish five years ago (and written a year or two before that, judging from the references). One would think this information should be part of the bibliographic description of the title.

This is a collection of interesting, but largely unrelated, papers from a conference in Barcelona in 1994, which do not present a coherent analysis, and only marginally treat education in relationship to information technology. The title is misleading, and Castells is not the editor, but simply one of the contributors, writing on a topic alien to education. The reader from Atlanta writing a review on this site is absolutely right. Do not expect a book. Some of the articles, particularly the one by Freire, could be of your interest.