Manuel Castells, author of the contemporary classic _The Information Age_ trilogy, has a new book published by Oxford University Press. It's based on his 2000 Clarendon Lectures in Management at Oxford.

Editorial description:

"A stunning insight into the impact of the Internet and communication technologies on society in the beginning of the twenty-first century. Manuel Castells - one of the world's leading social scientists - puts forward the case that the Internet is not just a technology, but the very fabric and backbone of the New Economy, and of the Network Society. It is essential that we understand its language, its logic, its constraints, and its freedoms in order to manage and to change our reality."

Praise for the book:

"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

Here's the table of contents:

1. Lessons from the History of the Internet
2. The Internet Culture
3. E-business and the New Economy
4. Virtual Communities or Network Society?
5. The Politics of the Internet (I): Computer Networks, Civil Society and the State
6. The Politics of the Internet (II): Privacy and Liberty in Cyberspace
7. Multimedia and the Internet: The Hypertext beyond Convergence
8. The Geography of the Internet: Networked Places
9. The Digital Divide in Global Perspective
10. Conclusion: The Challenges of the Network Society