The Internet Galaxy

RSA Journal Attempting an academic survey of the internet is an heroic task ... Manuel Castells is better placed than most to attempt such an undertaking, and pulls it off with verve and clarity.

Sunday Times Books of the Year 2001 Authoritative guide to the origins of the internet, how it is affecting every area of human life, and its business applications.

Prospect This small but complete volume is a critical introduction to internet-related theories, while doubling as a simplified reader on his own ideas. The book should help to spread his influence beyond the faithful.

Mark Leonard, New Statesman The Internet Galaxy is the best attempt by a big thinker to grapple with the net's long-term implications for our society.

John Naughton, author of A Brief History of the Future: The Origins of the Internet The Internet is shaping society and in turn being shaped by society. It takes a scholar of Manuel Castells's range to do justice to this phenomenon. His book is learned without being pompous, and insightful without being impenetrable. If we ever get a discipline of Internet studies, this will be one of its founding texts.

Geoff Mulgan, author of Communications and Control and Connexity Director of the Performance and Innovation Unit, The Cabinet Office and head of the Prime Minister's Forward Strategy Unit Manuel Castells has proved once again that he has an unmatched synoptic capacity to make sense of the complexities of a networked world, and here writes with clarity and insight about everything from the history of the technology to the subcultures that have done so much to shape it.

Library Journal Thoroughly researched and truly global in scope. Castells provides balanced covergae of e-business and the new economy: the politics of the Internet, including privacy and freedom: and the geography of the Internet. Highly recommended for academic libraries.

Publishers Weekly [An] excellent, readable, nontechnical summary of the history, social implications and likely future of Internet business.

Management Today: Guru Guide Castells is probably the world's most highly regarded commentator on the information age and new economic order.

The Wall Street Journal 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.

Charles Leadbetter - Financial Times A readable, articulate and persuasive account of why the internet's most powerful impacts on the shape of business, politics and society may be yet to come. Castells is the nearest thing the internet has to a founding philosopher.

Manuel Castells is Professor of Planning and Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. He has also been a visiting professor in fifteen universities in Europe, North America, Asia, and Latin America and has published twenty-one books, including the acclaimed trilogy TheInformation Age: Economy, Society, and Culture, which has been translated into fourteen languages.

Introduction; 1. Lessons from the History of the Internet; 2. The Internet Culture; 3. E-business and the New Economy; 4. Virtual Communities or Network Society?; 5. The Politics of the Internet (I): Computer Networks, Civil Society, and the State; 6. The Politics of the Internet (II): Privacy and Liberty in Cyberspace; 7. Multimedia and the Internet: The Hypertext beyond Convergence; 8. The Geography of the Internet: Networked Places; 9. The Digital Divide in Global Perspective; 10. Conclusion: The Challenges of the Network Society