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The final volume in Manuel Castells' trilogy is devoted to processes
of global social change induced by interaction between networks and identity.
End of Millenium opens with a study of the collapse of
the Soviet Union, which traces its demise back to the incapacity of industrial
statism to manage the transition to the Information Age. In this volume, the author
demonstrates the rise of inequality, polarization, and social exclusion throughout
the world, taking as his focus Africa, urban poverty, and the plight of children.
In addition, Manuel Castells documents the formation of a global criminal economy
that deeply affects economics and politics in many countries. He analyzes the
political and cultural foundations of the emergence of the Asian Pacific as a
critically important region in the global economy. And he reflects on the contradictions
of European unification, proposing the concept of the network state. In
the general conclusion of the trilogy, included in this volume, Castells draws
together the threads of his arguments and his findings, presenting a systematic
interpretation of our world in this end of millenium. Manuel
Castells, born in Spain in 1942, is Professor of Sociology, and of Planning at
the University of California, Berkeley, where he was appointed in 1979, after
teaching for 12 years at the University of Paris. He has also taught and researched
at the Universities of Madrid, Chile, Montreal, Campinas, Caracas, Mexico, Geneva,
Copenhagen, Wisconsin, Boston, Southern California, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan,
Amsterdam, Moscow, Novosibirsk, Hitotsubashi, and Barcelona. He has published
20 books, including The Informational City. He has been a Guggenheim Fellow,
and a recipient of the C. Wright Mills Award, and of the Robert and Helen Lynd
Award. He is a member of the European Academy. The Information Age is being
translated into 10 languages. |
