Customer Reviews

End of Millennium (Information Age Series) (Vol 3)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I read this book as a stand-alone book even though it is No. 3 of a trilogy. Castells deals with the most important issues of our times, and he does so, in a serious, scholarly, but readable way. This book is "must" reading for people in economics, politics, policy studies as well as in the other social sciences. Interested lay persons will find this book quite accessible..

Many of the observations Prof. Catells made are valid, however the connection between information technology and the social problems are not very strong. The network states, global criminal society, wealth disparity, etc. are more or less the byproduct of globalization. Yes, information technology accelerates the rate of globalization. But would those social problems exist without information technology? Mostly likely yes. These phenomena are not new, they predate the advent of the Information Age (the World Wide Web and mass adoption of internet is a post-1990 phenomenon). Multinatioal organizations (or globalization) have been around for many decades, same goes for the North-South polical economic paradigm. So, attributing all these social problems to the Information Age (at least that is the impression I got out of it) may not be an accurate representation. Nonetheless, his trilogy does demonstrate the acute problem of a global digital divide, and he suggested some possible solutions in some of his other books.

The book delivers a good overview of the world in the "end of the millennium". However, it's 2010 and the world has continued to develop making further research is necessary.

I was sent the first edition of this book even though a second is already out and has been for years. Not disclosed that this was older edition.

Who is entitlted to judge 'project identity' over 'risistant identity' without recognizing firstly the issues of power, source, context? It is reasonable to imbue 'project identity' to those self-programming producers as well as to those nation-states that are capable of lunching a war just for their national or religious identity. But it could be harmful to suggest those generic labor give up 'resistant identity' while they are not yet organized or empowered. Not mention to those minority or aboriginal people, who could become extinct without resistance. In fact, why should not a resistant identity be counted as a 'project' in the first place?

At any rate, the descriptive part of the book is a good reference for those who never watch/read international news.

This is a horrible book and very hard to read. The author writes with long sentences that use big words throughout, that are not necessary in understanding his concepts. This book could have been written in half the words and you would have actually been able to comprehend it. VCR manuals read better than this book.