The Internet Galaxy: Reflections on the Internet, Business, and Society
Author(s): Manuel Castells (Author)
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Publication Date: 3 April 2003
Edition: Illustrated
Language: English
Print length: 304 pages
ISBN-10: 9780199255771
ISBN-13: 9780199255771
Book Description
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.
Editorial Reviews
Review
“Absorbing history…. 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…. In his sobering final chapter, the author studies the divide between peoples and regions that operate in the digital world and those that cannot.”–Kirkus Reviews
“An excellent, readable, nontechnical summary of the history, social implications and likely future of Internet business.”–Publishers Weekly
“Thoroughly researched…[and] truly global in scope. Castells provides balanced coverage 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.”–Library Journal
“Manuel Castells is today the most insightful theoretician of the information society, perhaps the Marx or the Marcuse of the New Economy.”–Federico Rampini, La Revista dei Libri
“A magnus opus if ever there was one, these three books together constitute, in my view, the finest piece of contemporary social analysis for at least a generation.”–Frank Webster, British Journal of Sociology
Review
A very readable and stimulating book. ― Professor Laurie Taylor, BBC Radio 4 ‘Thinking Allowed’
[An] excellent, readable, nontechnical summary of the history, social implications and likely future of Internet business. ―
Publishers Weekly, 12 Nov. 01
. . . a superb guide to the workings of the internet and its wider implications. . . . [Castells] brings a sociologist’s understanding of the importance of culture in business to his analysis of the internet. . . . stands supreme as a wise and insightful guide to the web. ―
Management Today, November 01 (UK)
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. ―
John Naughton, author of ‘A Brief History of the Future: The Origins of the Internet’
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. ―
Geoff Mulgan, author of ‘Communication and Control’ and ‘Connexity’; Head of the Prime Minister’s Forward Strategy Unit
Castells is probably the world’s most highly regarded commentator on the information age and new economic order. ―
Management Today: Guru Guide, October 2001
. . . 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. ―
Charles Leadbeater, Financial Times, 04/12/01
Thoroughly researched … [and] truly global in scope. Castells provides balanced coverage 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. ―
Library Journal, Nov 01
Absorbing history….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…. In his sobering final chapter, the author studies the divide between peoples and regions that operate in the digital world and those that cannot. ―
Kirkus ReviewThe Internet Galaxy is the best attempt by a big thinker to grapple with the net’s long-term implications for our society. ― New Statesman, 14/01/02
This small but complete volume is a critical introduction to internet-related theories, while doubling as a simplified reader on [Castells’] own ideas. The book should help to spread his influence beyond the faithful. ―
Prospect, 02/2002
Book Description
The leading commentator on cyberspace looks at the Internet’s impact on business, the economy, and our daily lives
About the Author
Manuel Castells, born in Spain in 1942, is Professor of Sociology, and Professor of City & Regional Planning at the University of California, Berkeley, where he was appointed in 1979 after teaching for twelve years at the University of Paris. He has also been a visiting professor in fifteen universities around the world, and an invited lecturer in hundreds of academic and professional institutions in thirty-five countries. He has published twenty books including the trilogy The Information Age: Economy, Society, and Culture, published by Blackwell in 1996-2000, and translated into twelve languages. Among other appointments, he has been a member of the European Commission’s High Level Expert Group on the Information Society (1995/97), and a member of the United Nations Secretary General’s Advisory Board on Information and Communication Technologies (2000/2001).
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