Product Description

The Web has been with us for less than a decade. The popular and commercial diffusion of the Internet has been extraordinary - instigating and enabling changes in virtually every area of human activity and society. We have new systems of communication, new businesses, new media and sources of information, new forms of political and cultural expression, new forms of teaching and learning, and new communities. But how much do we know about the Internet - its history, its technology, its culture, and its uses? What are its implications for the business world and society at large? The diffusion has been so rapid that it has outpaced the capacity for well-grounded analysis. Soem say everything will change, others that little will change. Manuel Castells is widely regarded as the leading analyst of the Information Age and the Network Society. In addition to his academic work, he acts as adviser at the highest international levels. In this short, accessible, and informative book, he brings his experience and knowledge to bear on the Internet Galaxy. How did it all begin? What are the cultures that make up and contest the Internet? How is it shaping the new business organization and re-shaping older business organizations? What are the realities of the digital divide? How has the Internet affected social and cultural organization, political participation and communication, and urban living? These are just some of the questions addressed in this much needed book. Castells avoids any predictions or prescriptions - there have been enough of those - but instead draws on an extraordinary range of detailed evidence and research to describe what is happening, and to help us understand how the Internet has become the medium of the new network society.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #217669 in Books
• Published on: 2002-10-31
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

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"

Review
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. (RSA Journal )

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

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. (Prospect )

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

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 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 )

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. (Library Journal )

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

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

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. (The Wall Street Journal )

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. (Charles Leadbetter - Financial Times )

Geoff Mulgan, Head of the Prime Minister's Forward Strategy Unit
Castells has an unmatched capacity to make sense of the complexities of a networked world...

Customer Reviews

Another extension of Castells' hypothesis about an increasingly networked world!
I first came across Castells' work including this book as well as his wider hypothesis about a highly networked world in 2004. Ever since, and following a humble attempt at an academic essay later, I remain deeply sceptical of a widely networked world and an Internet galaxy which he so eloquently writes about.

Marshall McLuhan said the immortal words "the medium is message". Via this book Castells asserts that the "network is the message" and the Internet is the "very fabric" of our lives. He prudently explains that a network is a set of interconnected nodes and a very old form of human practice, lest one commits the fallacy of presuming it to be something merely or exclusively electronic.

In this book he explores the culture of the Internet, e-business, new economy, dotcom boom (and bust), politics of civil society and of cyberspace - all the usual suspects. Networks are proliferating in all domains of the economy and society, outperforming and "outcompeting" vertically organised corporations and centralised bureaucracies, according to him. However, I think this book is a bit short sighted. Having read it many times over, I remain convinced that rather than hypothesizing about the "Internet Galaxy", Castells has put forward a new age theory of globalisation - which has winners and losers, and is littered with pluses and pitfalls.

Are those who live on less than a $1 a day in this Internet Galaxy? Perhaps they are caught in a time warp if this Internet Galaxy is here. Is the destitute kid in sub-Saharan Africa part of a "Network" when he walks miles to get a pot of water? What about parts of the world, and there are some, where they have no electricity and running water, let alone the Internet. The author and the wider academia describe it as the "Digital Divide". Castells calls them the "Internet haves and have-nots" in this book. I think it's a bit more basic than that.

Phantasms of a new world envisaged by him stem from using technology as an entry point as well as the basis of the argument devoid of a constructive dosage of ground reality in relation to the world we inhabit. A supposition that everyone has equal access, equal understanding and similar concerns about the Internet; if not presently then at some point in the immediate future, leaves one at the risk of being unrealistic. In most parts, the Internet Galaxy commits that fault in my opinion.

I appreciate the profound global changes technology is bringing about which have been so eloquently mapped by the author. But I cannot ignore the short and long term differences it is creating in our world. While this book is recommended reading for media and cultural studies students; readers across the wider world, including myself, may interpret what has been said in this book in a different light.

The Philosopher Of The Internet!
This is essential reading for those interested in the social, rather than the technical, implications of the internet revolution. A sociologist based at the University of Berkeley in San Francisco, Castells has been dubbed the "premiere philosopher of the internet revolution".

The Internet World
I have always wanted to know more about the internet.How did it all begin and what can the internet do for me. The starts for with information on how the internet started and the research that went on. It continues talking about how to make a webpage and a online business. The book also has a list of web sites that you might like to visit. This is agreat book for anyone who would like to learn more about the internet or would like to know about online business. This is a good book and well worth the money.