The Rise of the Network Society: The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture, Volume I

The Rise of Network Society brings up many important issues regarding globalization and what Manuel Castells calls the network society. He argues that the technological revolution that began in the late 70s in Silicon Valley has had a profound impact on all aspects of society. The changes, he argues are most apparent in the new relationships between the economy, state and society that have been formed. He suggests that an increase in the flexibility of management, a decentralization of production and an increased reliance on networking has caused many of the immediate changes taking place. Castells suggests that it is through the decline in the labor movement and the devaluing of the laborers that capital has become an increasingly powerful network. This, he suggests has caused networks such as labor, criminal or mafia groups, and financial markets to be realized on a global rather than local scale. By looking at how new relationships and identities are being conceived of in what he calls the informational age, Castells is able to theorize about the ways in which technology and information have will continue to transform society. Castells suggests that as distances between places become shorter, time will also be changed. Technologies such as the internet, television and computers have decreased the space between different parts of the world to such an extent that we now have the capabilities to process information in real time. The fragmentation of the local community has led to an increasing reliance on global community organizations or the "net". People can now keep in touch with friends, date and divorce over the internet. This has caused for the increased attention on identity issues, since as Castells suggests, identity has and will continue to be an, or the fundamental aspect of meaning. Identity has been transformed from something you do to what you believe you are. Ideas about the self have become reliant upon global media and technological networks, rather than family and community. The increased reliance on social networks for identity purposes has caused identity to be vulnerable to network shutdowns. With the growing level networks and nodes for transmitting information and imaginations, people are beginning to claim increasingly specific identities that are difficult to share with others, which is sometimes related to the resurgence of xenophobia. According to Castells, the current social changes that are taking place are due to the technological and informational transformations. Although he plainly negates technological determinism, it seems he infers something similar. He suggests that the information technology revolution that began in the late 20th century is what reshaped capitalism into what he calls "informational capitalism". Informationalism is what he believes has caused the new technological and material basis of the economy and thusly society. He distinguishes between capitalist restructuring and the rise of informa

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

If you are a reader with only a casual interest in globalization, or someone in search of "hip" reading suggested by a magazine, then this book is not for you. Yes, this is an academic book. It is intended for the student or scholar in sociology, economics, or world politics. As such, it is an excellent work. It extremely detailed and written for those within the ivory tower. As a Graduate student in Sociology, I loved it. Yes, it is hard reading. But the challenge is worth it.

Although the author of this volume has a reputation for ponderous prose I did not find his writing style as forbidding as I feared it would be. With determination, one can quickly adjust and fall into line with the epic tempo of the book. An extraordinary intellectual adventure awaits anyone who has the fortitude and time to negotiate these pages which, I believe, provide a clearer picture of the emergence of 21st century society and culture than anything else that I have encountered on the subject.

This book, along with Volume's 2 & 3 in the series is a must read for anyone who wants to understand the implications of the fundamental transformation that the globalization of the financial markets has wrought throughout the world. The trilogy argues that we are at the beginning of changes as explosive as those wrought by the industrial revolution. Castells roams the world as he documents economic, social and political changes and speculates about the future. The author worked on these books for 12 years and this represents his life work. I actually would rate the trilogy an 11. It is an epic undertaking.