Manuel Castells

• First in-depth study of Manuell Castells pioneering work
• Traces Castells thought from his work on urban change in the 1970s to his recent theories of global social transformations
• Distills the central ideas in Castells work into an accessible and concise introduction for undergraduate students
• Explores Castells writings on the network society, informational capitalism and democracy in crisis
• Provides a critical analysis of Castells thought in relation to ongoing debates about globalization

Acknowledgements ix

Introduction 1

1: Transformation of Baseline 1

Neo-Marxism and the Renewal of Urban Sociology 13

Technology and Social Change 20

Informationalism 28

Epistemology 33

The Politics of Research 38

2: Production 42

Postindustrialism 43

The Economic Crisis of the 1970s 46

Internationalization of the Economy 48

Global Financial Markets 50

The Network Enterprise 55

Individualization of Labor 61

Informational Capitalism: Critical Issues 65

3: Experience 75

Social movements as subjects of history 76

Social movements beyond the local 81

Social movements and the creation of identity 83

Two case studies 87

Social movements and the culture of real virtuality 99

4: The network state and informational politics 104

The theory of the state 106

The crisis of the nation-state 109

Informational politics 115

The reaffirmation of the state 118

The rise of the network state? 122

Power and networks 128

5: Flows and places 141

Castells's theory of space 142

The space of flows 145

The time of flows 155

Cities in the space of flows 162

6: The logic of networks 167

What is a network? 169

Informational networks 181

The network logic 185

Preeminence of morphology over action 196

Conclusion 199

Notes 207

Bibliography of Manuel Castells 224

Other References 241

Index 252

"Manuel Castells holds a well-deserved place at the centre of debates over the 'information age' that he helped to name. Felix Stalder offers a sustained and careful appraisal of Castells's work, both incisively critical at some points and generously acknowledging the quality of his achievement at others."

David Lyon, Queens University, Ontario

"This book is a very beautiful model of how one mind engages with another: Felix Stalder has seized the essence of Manuel Castells's work and its immense relevance to our time. Daring to be positively critical, Stalder enlarges and also defines Castells's arguments. Thus the book multiplies Castells by Stalder and the result is an instant expansion of the mind of the reader."

Derrick DeKerckhove, University of Toronto

Felix Stalder, University of Applied Arts Social Sciences, Zurich, Switzerland Manuel Castells highly-acclaimed trilogy, The Information Age, represents the most comprehensive attempt to develop a coherent social theory of the present day. From his early, groundbreaking work on urban change and social movements, to his current work on the social transformations in a globalized
world based on the use of new communication technologies, Castells has been at the forefront of contemporary debates for over three decades. At the heart of his theory lies the claim that we are witnessing a shift from vertically-integrated hierarchies to flexible, distributed networks which structure dominant social processes as well as the main challenges launched
against them. His scope, rigor and style have earned him favorable comparison with the great classics of sociology, particularly Max Weber.

This book provides the first complete study of Castells theory of the network society. It is a critical examination of his analysis of informational
capitalism', of global social movements as the source of new values, and of networked governance. Felix Stalder also provides an original and in-depth
account of the theory of the space of flows and of Castells particular notion of the character of informational networks. The book serves as both an
excellent introduction to Castells wide-ranging theories and an innovative critique which contributes to ongoing debates in the field.