Review: A New Globe in the Making: Manuel Castells on the Information Age

Reviewed Work(s): The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture by Manuel
Castells
Review by: Markku Wilenius
Source: Acta Sociologica , 1998, Vol. 41, No. 3 (1998), pp. 269-276
Published by: Sage Publications, Ltd.

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 ACTA SOCIOLOGICA 1998

REVIEW ESSAY

A New Globe in the Making: Manuel

on the Information Age

Markku W?lenius
Finland Futures Research Centre, Turku School of Economics and Business
Administration, Finland

Manuel Castells: The Information Age: Economy, lennium', Castells focuses on developments in
Society and Culture. Vol. 1: The Network Society global geopolitics, and the new actors and
(1996). Vol. 2: The Power of Identity (1997). institutions that are shaping the end of the
Vol. 3: End of Millennium (1998). Maiden: millennium.
Blackwell. According to Castells, we live in an histor-
ical period of transformation, where a new
Accompanying Manuel Castells on his three-societal system is emerging. The two key fea-
volume, nearly 1500-page expedition on the tures of this new order are informationalism
Information Age is a challenging experience.and globalism. The emerging economy is infor-
Castells' eclectic approach, employing exten-mational in that productivity and success in
sive methodological tools and a vast array ofcompetition essentially derive from the ability
social phenomena to arrive at his analysis,of economic actors to create, handle, master
goes far beyond standard sociological narra- and apply information. It is global because the
tives, where the scope is usually limited to central functions of production, consumption
some particular field of social phenomena andand transportation, as well as many of the cri-
the work carried out within a specific disci-tical resources of the economy (capital, labour,
pline. Moreover, what is distinctive in Castells'
raw materials, management, knowledge, tech-
approach is his determination to provide us nology and markets) are being organized on a
with a new macrosociological theory aboutglobal scale and through global networks. The
the paradigmatic shift from the industrial age principal driving force and the material basis
to the Information Age, and to back up his of this process has been the birth and rapid
theoretical considerations with a vast body ofspread of information technology, which pro-
empirical evidence. While this approach inevi- vides the necessary platform for the new econ-
tably creates some problems in providing evi- omy.
dence in support of universal claims, Castells' Having thus summarized the key message
work is clearly light-years away from less meti-of Castells' work, it would be tempting to clas-
culously researched studies on the postmodern sify the author as a technological determinist,
order or technologically determined assump-one who sees technology as a horse pulling
tions on the information society. the carriage of culture and social life. However,
The first volume of Castells' trilogy, 'Thereading further into Castells' magnum opus, it
Network Society', concentrates on providingbecomes clear that much of the substance he
an overview of the major economic and cul- provides points to the conclusion that
tural developments which have been instru- although technology is present in practically
mental in making networking a major patterneverything we do on this planet today, it
of social organization. In the second volume,should be understood as only a part of the
'The Power of Identity', Castells examines thehuman subsystems of economy, society and
social movements of our time and the chal-
culture. Technology is society; societal pro-
lenges facing our political systems basedcesses
on cannot be understood or represented
without the underlying technology. Tech-
nation-states. In the final volume, 'End of Mil-

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270 ACTA SOCIOLOGICA 1998 VOLUME 41

nology does among not studentsdetermine

and spread rapidly to the
represents it. metropolises
Nor of the does
world. For Castells, this
societ
nological development; it only uses it. The was a cultural movement, with no claims to
dilemma of technological determinism may be political power other than the right to stand
a misplaced question altogether, since the use up against the follies of the consumer society.
and development of technology mirrors us as Later on, this movement found other forms of
human beings rather than telling us anything expression, such as the feminist movement,
directly about the role of technology in our the peace movement and environmentalism,
societies. which began to claim their right for self-recog-
This becomes obvious when we look at nition and individual autonomy vis-?-vis capit-
the way Castells traces the historical origins alism and
ofthe state.
the Information Age. According to Castells, This, then, is the core of Castells grand
there were three distinct and initially separate vision of the birth of the Information Age:
processes which began to mould historythree historical processes, which stemmed,
at the
turn of the 1970s. The first process involved respectively, from the technological revolution,
the revolution of information technology. The
the restructuring of the economy, and the cri-
cradle of this revolution was the Silicon tique
Valley
of culture, and which later converged in
in California, where computer pioneers various
madeways to bring about a globalized infor-
their groundbreaking technological innova- mation society, a novel and venerable trinity of
tions, such as microprocessors and theproduction, inte- power and human experience,
grated circuit, and also began to produce where networking has become the dominant
software. Moreover, these pioneers were alsoform of social organization. In this new set-
the first to show the benefits of the networkingting, the production, processing and trans-
principle and decentralized corporate struc- mission of information become essential
tures. The second historical process was instruments for the attainment of economic
initiated in the political realm in the earlysuccess, political legitimacy and cultural influ-
1970s, when historical capitalism, and also ence. But Castells goes beyond mere descrip-
socialism, or statism, as Castells calls it, drifted tion and analysis of historical processes; he
into deep crisis. also develops a metaphysical foundation for
In capitalism, economies, businesses and the scene in which these historical events are
state functionaries were forced to develop new taking place.
ideas of organization and management. Flex- At the heart of Castells' metaphysics lies a
ible organization and global expansion of the polarity of the Net and the Self. The Net sig-
core activities of major companies, aided by nifies the multitude of globalizing networks of
the new technologies, became the common- power, wealth and information, equipped with
sense strategy of corporate management. But information technology. The purpose of this
where capitalist systems were able to find such conglomerate of global actors is to provide
sources for renewal, the restructuring of states ever-increasing profits for the global capitalist
proved to be an impossibility, as shown by the system, which constantly monitors markets for
embarrassing story of the rise and fall of the new opportunities. At the other end of the axis
Soviet Union and most of its allies. Drawing on there is the Self, which signifies the totality of
a wealth of data, Castells shows how the Soviet individual and collective identities who seek to
Union was unable to meet the technical chal- sustain their lives in the turmoil of increasing
lenge of the emerging information technology global flows. It is the deep-rooted disjunction
revolution. Burdened by inertia and a massive of the Net and the Self where the battles of
disregard of its political nomenclature towards class struggle are fought in the Information
the welfare of its citizens, the great social Age. According to Castells, the core of this
experiment of our century collapsed, changing struggle is cultural, and these battles are
the configuration of global geopolitics forever.waged in the networks of information and
This happened at the precise moment when symbol manipulation.
the Information Age began to materialize in Just as individuals and local collectives in
the Western world in the form of new commu- the Information Age are caught between the
nication networks. global flows of informational capitalism and
The third major historical process Castellsthe struggle to establish their reflexively
identifies is the blossoming of the social move- acquired self-identity, so the nation-state - the
ments, which began thirty years ago in Parispolitical and social unit of the industrial age -

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 The Information Age 271

is caught between the increasing power tion has always played an important role in
claims of supranational systems and growing human development and social transforma-
demands for the decentralization of political tions. What is new in the present situation is
decision-making. Most of the power that the way human beings have become a means
nation-states once possessed is clearly gone. of production. The old order of the industrial
They are increasingly incapable of controllingage, where natural resources were a principal
monetary policy, deciding their budgets, orga-means of production, has changed fundamen-
nizing trade, providing resources for the tally. In the Information Age, with the advent
maintenance of social benefits, and so on. of knowledge as the raw material for economic
What they have preserved, however, is their and social development, humans have become
capacity to influence. They have become
a productive power in their own right.
increasingly strategic actors in the interna-According to Castells, the new informa-
tional arena, and their institutional capabil- tional paradigm will also bring about the con-
ities must provide the means for national vergence of biological and technical systems.
economies to prosper in global competition. As the new millennium unfolds, we can expect
Castells gives us an historical example by tra- a colossal growth of applications in the field of
cing the sudden disappearance of China from biotechnology. This development is closely
the frontiers of technological development in linked with the development of information
the 14th century to the inability of the Chi-technology, as in the mapping of the human
nese State to support technological innovation genome, which will be dependent upon suffi-
processes. cient computer calculating power. The blur-
In Castells' vocabulary, the central socio-
ring of the boundaries between human life and
logical concept and metaphor for the Informa- technological systems may also compel us to
tion Age, and its organizing principle, isreconsider
the seriously our relationship with nat-
'network'. Industrial logic, based on hierar- ural systems. Moreover, it may be just a ques-
chies, is replaced by networking logic, which tion of time before technological systems
in the crude world of competition in informa- become capable of self-reflection, a quality
tional capitalism has already proved to bewhich far has previously been impossible for all
more efficient. Castells cites the extraordinarybut human beings.
success of East Asian economies during the While Castells argues persuasively for net-
last few decades as an example par excellence of
working as the underlying principle of the pre-
sent social organization, the other fundamental
the power of this logic: the organization of East
Asian economies is based on business net- principle of the Information Age - one that
works, both formal and informal. In this new moulds its economic and technological con-
system, power does not disappear into a labyr-struction in particular - is globalization. Cas-
inth of connections; it is negotiated within antells' term for the present techno-economic
extensive set of interactions between global system, of which the 1980s was the first dec-
flows, locally based identities and networkedade, is informational capitalism. Within this sys-
institutions and companies. Moreover, power istem, information technology has been the
most often linked to those actors who lead the necessary condition for globalizing the econ-
development of this new economic system.omy. Similarly, the most important feature of
These actors are not necessarily only thosethe new capitalism is its 'globalism'. As a con-
with a capacity to accumulate capital, and cept, 'global economy' is very different from
they are certainly not those who have ac- 'world economy', a concept developed by such
quired political leadership. The new gate- scholars as Wallerstein and Braudel referring
keepers, according to Castells, are those whoto the historical expansion of the market econ-
run the dynamo of the new economic system,omy with a world-wide accumulation of capi-
those who use and manipulate information fortal. 'Global economy' is based on the
the development of the new information sys-assumption that the market can operate
tems. throughout the world as a functional unit in
Although Castells is keen to point out the
real-time. This is made possible by the cultural
impact of technological systems on society, he shift which has changed the ways we relate to
also wants to demystify the role of informationtime and space.
within the present transformation. For it is not Castells arrives at the somewhat question-
information and knowledge as such that are able notion that we live in a culture of 'real
novel in the present age; knowledge accumula- virtuality', made possible by the new commu-

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272 ACTA SOCIOLOGICA 1998 VOLUME 41

nication technologies, communication and 'knots' thatwhereform a venue 'm

belief in the making' (part
for strategic action, is a system that can 1, p
ture of increased flow of information and change very rapidly This changeability puts
materials, the concept of 'place' definedlocal as aidentities and communities into a perma-
venue of certain functions whose form, pur-
nent state of uncertainty: flows of capital and
pose and meaning are derived from a totality information are mastered by a cosmopolitan
of physical borders (suburb, village, city) elite, whose job is to look for new opportu-
becomes obsolete. This 'space of places', as nities of getting greater interest for their
Castells calls it, is replaced by a 'space of flows' money. This means, in effect, that the more
which changes the fundamental order of thelocalities are integrated within the global net-
industrial society. As a result of this transfor-works, the more they are prone to changes
mation, says Castells, the previous order, in initiated outside their direct control.
which time defined the sequence of events, is It is here that Castells' system of collective
overthrown; now space organizes time in themovements marches in. Each of the historical
network society. We live in an 'on-line' reality, processes described above, characterized by
where we do not have to wait for things to globalization and the networking logic of social
happen according to specific timetables. Stockorganization, has played an important part in
exchange rates, news and weather forecasts, the emergence of the systemic disjunction
all are accessible anywhere in the world, at between the Net and the Self, between global
any time. networks of information, power and wealth
Castells calls this new temporal concept and locally constructed individual and collec-
timeless time, as opposed to the clock-time of tive identities. These processes continue to
the industrial age. Traditional biological and characterize the lives of most individuals and
social rhythms disappear and are replaced by social groups in the world. Drawing on his
an instant eternity, a temporal order without long-term interest in social movements, Cas-
order, where the frequency of events is acceler- tells places great emphasis on the analysis of
ated and concurrent orders are preferred. In the meaning of collective movements to our
everyday life, this means that via technological present social organization, again something
devices, we can be present in multiple places that is quite unusual in textbooks on the
simultaneously. In the global economic system, 'information society'.
timeless time reflects spatial processes, since Castells distinguishes three forms of col-
capital flows and communication no longer lective identity. The first is legitimizing identity,
inhabit a specific place, but exist as flows cap- referring to the collective movements that
able and ready to move instantaneously to any were instrumental in building the modern wel-
part of global hyperspace. While this analysis fare state: labour organizations, co-operatives,
is generally appealing, I was left wondering political parties, and so on. Castells sees an
whether this new time/space reality is really a historical irony in the fact that, just when the
decisive element in people's everyday lives, in democratic state has at last become the domi-
the 'here and now'. nant form of societal structure, the organiza-
There are three layers within this new tions which made it happen have become so
order. The first is the material foundation of alienated from issues that really matter that,
this spatial structure, the new information for many of us, they seem more like relics from
technology, which forms the basis of activities an ancient past than institutions which could
which take place simultaneously in various help us to further our commitments in the
localities. The information flows enabled Informationby Age.
these networks have become the working The second form of identity is resistance
environment of more and more people. The identity, which Castells describes as the 'exclu-
almost metaphysical idea behind the concept sion of the excluders by the excluded'. This is
of the 'space of flows' is that these flows arethe currently dominant form of social move-
able to constitute places in almost the same ment, born out of a resistance to the global
way as cities and regions are places. Of course,flows of the new economic order. Castells
this is not to imply that physical places woulddescribes several cases which embody this
disappear; they are merely intermingled withcategory of social movement: Mexico's Zapatis-
global networks. tas, who were able to attract a great deal of
This global 'space of flows', which also publicity for their cause by using the Internet
contains 'poles' whose function is to enhance as a tool for the dissemination of information;

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 The Information Age 273

the American Militia and the Patriot move- idea of timeless time, compressing occurrences
ment of the 1990s, a right-wing populistand alli-
concentrating on instantaneous time, the
ance which regards the age of information as
argument of the environmental movement is
based on a notion of 'glacial time', a concept
the age of confusion; and Japan's Aum Shinri-
kyo, a movement for 'highest truth', which borrowed from Lash and Urry, which is
has served as a platform for disillusioneddesigned
and to reveal the consequences of human
predominantly young representatives ofaction the on a long temporal scale. The issue of
people behind the 'miracle of Japan'. global warming is a particularly good example
Although they stem from very different of a social struggle in which the short-term
cultural, economic and institutional back- interest of providing the prerequisites for the
grounds, what is common to all these move- maintenance of industrial production and
work
ments is that they all stand out as reactive andopportunities is in contrast with the
defensive towards the rest of the world. But long-term interest of planetary survival threa-
much more influential than these reactive tened by the overuse of fossil fuels. But the
movements are proactive movements, particu- aims of the environmental movement go
larly those of feminism and environmentalism. beyond defending 'old' concepts of time and
In Castells' scheme, the fundamental change place. Castells sees the role of the environmen-
in women's position is supported by the tal new movement as proactive rather than reac-
informational economy, which facilitates thesupporting social strategies that may
tive,
dissemination of knowledge and ideas and hasus some way from the present culture of
bring
helped women to partake in schemes of 'real life-virtuality' and closer to a more viable
long education. Technological changes have relationship with nature.
also facilitated family planning and aided var- Castells' view of the significance of the
ious social movements that supported sexual environmental movement is related to his por-
liberation and the globalization of culture. trayal of the Information Age as representing
The third kind of identity in Castells' a new era in the relationship between Nature
scheme is project identity, which is potentially and Culture. The first era was marked by the
able to reconstruct elements of a new civic dominance of Nature over Culture, when nat-
society. In exploring the historical significance ural conditions were crucial for continued
and future potential of various social move- human existence. The second era began at the
ments, Castells places special emphasis on dawn theof the modern age, when Nature was
environmental movement as one which subjected may to industrial Culture, which aimed at
grow from resistance identity to projectincreasing iden- human welfare by harnessing nat-
tity, ready to build a positive identity of itsural ownresources through the use of technology.
and use the technological (telematic) and According to Castells, we are now entering the
social (networking) tools of the Informationthird period where 'Culture refers to Culture,
Age. Since Castells considers the environmen- having superseded Nature to the point that
tal movement the most influential social move- Nature is artificially revived ('preserved') as a
ment of our time, we have reason to take a cultural form' (part 1, p. 477). Here we also
closer look at his arguments in this matter. find Castells' definition of the ultimate mean-
Castells sees the role of the environmental ing of the environmental movement: 'to recon-
movement as being related to the transforma- struct nature as an ideal cultural form', which
tional forces implicit in our ways of perceivingpresumably means the correction of the cul-
the world in terms of space and time. In terms tural bias of the network society by re-inte-
of space, the environmental movement seeks grating the cycles of Nature into societal
to seize control of the environment we inhabit decision-making and the social control of
from the environmentally disinterested move- space. Castells does not develop this idea of
ments of global capital flows. The spatial logic human reconciliation with nature; he only
of the 'space of flows' and its overwhelming refers to the novelty of our era as one that
share of the world's economic and politicalenables us to live in a predominantly social
power makes this control very difficult toworld.
achieve for movements that are generally Castells' argumentation concerning the
organized locally. Furthermore, Castells sees
position of the environmental movement is
the environmental movement as the bearer of novel and interesting, and it would have been
a new type of temporal conceptualization as very interesting indeed to see it supported by
well. While the Information Age advocates the
empirical data. Unfortunately, although Cas-

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274 ACTA SOCIOLOGICA 1998 VOLUME 41

tells themselves in at the

compiled has adawn of the industrial
massive am
cal age, as described
evidence
for the by Marx and his followers,
other parts
but rather to describe
social movements, he the has
significancevery
of the
human arguments
to support his experience as a fundamental unit of he
social change.
as in numerous other Indeed, it is only
partsthis realization
of
tells surpriseswhich
us enables
byus to understand Castells' drive
discovering
to link the emergence and consolidation
minating perspective on aof the mu
new the
and does it in social movements
way to such that
diverse phe- s
nomena as the revolution of information
eral line of argument elegantly tech-
nology, the collapse of communism,
I have only discussed few the de-
of t
sanctification of the patriarchal
ber of issues Castells links order, the
toge
provide us withemergence ofa an informational/global
vision econ- of t
Age. On a deeper level,
omy and the networking we ca
form of organization.
What unites all these phenomenadiffere
tells' way of connecting is human
cesses and social transformations unless we experience, and it is only through the reflective
character
understand that, although Castells includes in of the human mind that these pro-
cesses and events gain their momentum and
his analysis multiple flows of occurrences
which take place so far above the scope of the
significance.
In order to provide further understanding
ordinary life of individuals that it hardly seems
of our time, Castells scrutinizes the unique
to make any difference, it is ultimately human
experience which lies in the heart of hiscombination
phe- of a multitude of new, indepen-
dent social developments, embedded in the his-
nomenology. Over and over again, the author
points out the concerns that were already torical heritage of the industrial age. Yet, as he
expressed in the early texts of Marx, one of points
the out, 'my main statement is that it does
first true modernists, i.e. in his Communist not really matter if you believe that this world,
Manifesto published in 1848. Here is Marx, or any of its features, is new or not. My analy-
expressing his vision of the growing disjunc-sis stands by itself (part 3, p. 336). It seems
tion of the human experience and the emer-that Castells' primary aim is perhaps not 'just'
to declare a new grand theory for social
ging new order of the 'bourgeois epoch', in the
epithet he gives to industrial society: change, but rather simply to present his obser-
vations on contemporary social life.
Constant revolutionizing of production, uninter-
rupted disturbance of all social relations, ever-
In this respect, there are two specific
social conflicts, which, for Castells as a sociolo-
lasting uncertainty and agitation, distinguish the
gist, make the Information Age a period in
bourgeois epoch from all earlier times. All fixed,
fast-frozen relationships, with their train of vener-which we observe intensified social power
struggles. The first conflict is the systemic dis-
able ideas and opinions, are swept away, all new-
formed ones become obsolete before they can junction of the local and the global, which
concerns most individuals and social groups.
ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy
is profaned, and men at last are forced to face with Although individualization and the post-tradi-
sober senses the real conditions of their lives and
tional order of social values engender a grow-
their relations with their fellow men.1
ing need for individuals and collectives to
In these lines, Marx expresses a realization ofestablish reflexive life planning, in a network
the daunting task of the individual faced withsociety this project becomes impossible because
the challenges of an unknown future mouldedof the discontinuity between the logic of
by forces that do not derive from historical power-making in the global network and the
contingencies. In Castells' scheme of things, logic of association in specific societies. This is
the ruling class, the old bourgeoisie, is being a much more pessimistic position than Gid-
transformed into an enclave of transnational dens' view of late modernity, where the Self
capitalists who control those critical assets ofbecomes a reflexive project that can be gov-
our age which provide the basis for economic erned in the interplay between the local and
success and cultural significance: the produc- the global. In the network society, the subject
tion, processing and dissemination of informa- is constructed chiefly on the basis of commu-
tion. nal resistance that stems from the imminent
cul-de-sac of this project of identity building,
However, the purpose of Castells' trilogy, it
seems to me, is not to show that we are backand from the serious effects of the fundamen-
in the old struggle that the masses found tal disjunction of the Net and the Self.

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 The Information Age 275

This fundamental social conflict expres- the conclusions, or where interpretations are
sing our Zeitgeist reflects the second, larger and too generalized or contestable. Clear mistakes
complementary field of social conflict which can also be found. For instance, in part 1,
Castells has undertaken to explore, understand Table 5.1, where Castells describes the diffu-
and reveal: the fight for power and wealth sion of the Internet, Finland is depicted in Jan-
between nations and blocks of nations, whichuary 1994 as a one-horse town with less than
is now taking place under the sun of the new1,000 hosts in the country, when in fact we
had at that time over 35,000 hosts and were,
globalized social order. This is an order in
which Europe undertakes to reorganize itself assessed
- (as it should be) on a per capita basis,
in the face of accelerating global competitionpioneers
- in global development. Castells' argu-
as a network state, a true expression of net- ment, that the diffusion of information tech-
worked political power system in the Informa- nology in national economies does not induce
tion Age. The European project may lead to unemployment, is difficult to accept in light of
the European experience, as almost all coun-
the formation of a new project identity, a strat-
egy based not on exclusion, but on sharedtries are burdened with structural unemploy-
values and common institutional goals. How-ment, the development of which coincides (I
ever, the general mistrust among Europeansbelieve not by accident) with the revolution in
towards the European Union and its latest information technology. Castells does not con-
expression, the European Monetary Union, sider the dilemma of employment in the con-
means that there is still a long way to go text of the crises of the welfare state, in which
before the EU becomes established as an entitythe transformation of production technologies,
in its own right in the minds of the citizenry. coupled with the liberalization of markets, has
It is also a new order in which the USA fundamentally weakened the formerly explicit
increasingly dominates the political sphere correlation
of between economic growth and its
the global system, and where its former coun- effect of producing social good through tax
terpart, the states that once formed the Soviet returns and higher employment. What might
Union, now mark the blind alley of the Infor- be taking place in the global informational
mation Age. Along with the serious stagnation economy is a shift from the market economy,
of Africa and regions that can be found lit- with the invisible hand of the State safeguard-
erally in every country and every city, they ing the common good, to crude laissez-faire
form the core of a new geography of social capitalism, where every step to increase the
exclusion which Castells calls 'the rise of the productivity of companies and thus their turn-
Fourth World'. One frightening aspect of over this may lead to a reduction in the number of
segmentation is the development of whatjobs. Cas-
tells calls 'perverse connection', the sudden The greatest shortcoming in Castells' tril-
expansion of global crime in the 1990s, which ogy is that the author does not consider at
can be seen as a desperate attempt by the any length the massive number of critical
excluded to escape their marginality in the glo- trends inducing global change on the bio-
bal informational economy. Castells also sees sphere. In other words: although Castells does
the rise of the Pacific countries as a new observe the social significance of the environ-
source of economic growth and technological mental movement, as reflected above, he does
innovation in the global economy. Is this not per-
appreciate the economic and political
haps a new union of states on the rise, a
manifestations of wasteful and resource inten-
sive economies.
union which will take the lead in the trinity of The sinister legacy of the
development centres of the world? Castells industrial age - the excessive use of energy
does not appear to think so. There will andbematerials
no - is causing land cover changes,
Pacific Era, because there is no integrated harmful emissions, and an increasingly pol-
entity which could form such a unity. Develop- luted biosphere. Together with explosive popu-
ment in the Pacific depends on the strong lation growth, these processes are already
nationalism of the countries in the region, and giving rise to harmful and far-reaching
they are not prepared to downplay their changes in our atmosphere, the impacts of
national identities for the sake of the common which on human systems will, according to
good, as appears to be the case in Europe. our present knowledge, be considerable. These
Given Castells' holistic approach and the developments and the social responses engen-
dered by them already have a major influence
scope of his research, there are inevitably parts
where the data provided is not able to support in the global economy, causing fierce battles

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276 ACTA SOCIOLOGICA 1998 VOLUME 41

over diminishing has so vigorouslynatural

and systematically left out
res
no doubt that environmental issues are bound
from his treatise the question 'what should be
done': 'Each time an intellectual has tried to
to be among the factors that will determine
how the Information Age will materialize for
answer this question, and seriously implement
us. the answer, catastrophe has ensued. This was
Manuel Castells has undertakenparticularly
a gigan- case with certain Ulianov in 1902
tic task in providing us with a holistic . . .' (part
view 3,
ofp. 358). For Castells, history is
the present world system and of the indeedlebensweitsomething we can learn from. The les-
that each of us in his or her own wayson in this case is that for the social scientist,
inhabits.
the principal
For the most part, I find his description plausi- task is not to change the world,
but to analy-
ble and convincing. Above all, Castells' interpret it in a new way so as to give
sis is always interesting and often toolscontains
for people to free themselves from the
fresh ideas and empirical findings. clutches of ideological and theoretical folly.
The amount
There
of data, gathered from all parts of the is no doubt
world, is that Manuel Castells, with
simply stunning. Castells' research onhis Zeitanalyse, does more in this respect than
informa-
perhaps any
tional capitalism is a unique contribution to other social scientist to make us
the field of social sciences, and is bound to understand the world we live in.
become a classic that will be referred to in the
same way as Marx's work on industrial capit-
alism. Notes
But there is a fundamental difference 1 Translation provided by Berman (1982).
between Marxist political analysis and the Cas-
tellsian account of the relationship of Theory
and Practice. In what is one of the shortest Reference
sections in the trilogy, Castells explains why Berman.
he M. 1982. All that is Solid Melts into Air. London: Verso.

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