{"title":"Information Age Ser","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"information-age-book-manuel-castells-9781557868749","title":"The Information Age","description":"This is an account of the two great and conflicting trends now shaping the world: globalization and identity. The information technology revolution and the restructuring of capitalism have induced the network society, and ushered in the globalization of strategic economic activities, flexibility and instability of work, and a culture of real virtuality. But alongside the transformation of capitalism and the demise of statism there has been a powerful surge of expressions of collective identity. These challenge globalization on behalf of cultural singularity and control over life and environment. Manuel Castells describes the origins, purpose, and effect of proactive movements, such as feminism and environmentalism, which aim to transform human relationships at their most fundamental level:  and of reactive movements that build trenches of resistance on behalf of God, nation, ethnicity, family, or locality. The fundamental categories of existence, the author shows, are threatened by the combined, contradictory assault of techno-economic forces and transformative social movements, each using the new power of the media to promote their ambitions. Caught between these opposing trends, he argues, the nation-state is called into question, drawing into its crisis the very notion of political democracy. The author moves thematically between the United States, Western Europe, Russia, Mexico, Bolivia, the Islamic World, China and Japan, seeking to understand a variety of social processes that are, he contends, closely inter-related in function and meaning. This is a book of profound importance for understanding how the world will have been transformed by the beginning of the next century.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49544597143825,"sku":"GOR010632496","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49548944081169,"sku":"GOR001970160","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49566249025809,"sku":"GOR001496306","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50174571675921,"sku":"CIN1557868743VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51694694334737,"sku":"CIN1557868743G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1557868743.jpg?v=1751442473"},{"product_id":"information-age-book-manuel-castells-9781557866172","title":"Information Age","description":"The first of three linked investigations of contemporary global, economic, political and social change, this book examines the processes of globalization that have marginalized and now threaten to make redundant whole countries and peoples excluded from informational networks.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49569056653585,"sku":"GOR002252440","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49627780841745,"sku":"GOR001386801","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50714482737425,"sku":"CIN1557866171VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50822292046097,"sku":"GOR002325654","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51433793093905,"sku":"GOR009362904","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52106562994449,"sku":"CIN1557866171G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1557866171.gif?v=1750894661"},{"product_id":"power-of-identity-book-m-castells-9781405107136","title":"The Power of Identity","description":"The Power of Identity is the second volume of Manuel Castells' trilogy, The Information Age: Economy, Society, and Culture. It deals with the social, political, and cultural dynamics associated with the technological transformation of our societies and with the globalization of the economy. It analyzes the importance of cultural, religious, and national identities as sources of meaning for people, and the implications of these identities for social movements. It studies grassroots mobilizations against the unfettered globalization of wealth and power, and considers the formation of alternative projects of social organization, as represented by the environmental movement and the women's movement. It also analyzes the crisis of the nation-state and its transformation into a network state, and the effects on political democracies of the difficulties of international governance and the submission of political representation to the dictates of media politics and the politics of scandal. This substantially expanded second edition updates and elaborates the analysis of these themes, adding new sections on al-Qaeda and global terrorist networks, on the anti-globalization movement, on American unilateralism and the conflicts of global governance, on the crisis of political legitimacy throughout the world, and on the theory of the network state.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49601820098833,"sku":"GOR001852010","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":50522773815569,"sku":"CIN1405107138A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51327222579473,"sku":"CIN1405107138VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1405107138.jpg?v=1751304823"},{"product_id":"information-age-book-manuel-castells-9781557868725","title":"Information Age","description":"The final volume of a trilogy, this title is devoted to processes of global social change induced by interaction between networks and identity. The author studies empirically the collapse of the Soviet Union, tracing it back to the incapacity of industrial statism to manage the transition to the information age. He shows the rise of inequality, polarization and social exclusion throughout the world, focusing on Africa, on urban poverty and on children's plight. Manuel Castells documents the formation of a global criminal economy that deeply affects economies and politics in many countries. He analyzes the political and cultural foundations of the emergence of the Asian Pacific as the most dynamic 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 the world at this end of the millennium.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49634241642769,"sku":"GOR001703139","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49656522211601,"sku":"GOR002020768","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52106563420433,"sku":"CIN1557868727G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1557868727.jpg?v=1751213083"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/collections\/information-age-ser-book-series.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}