Review of Castells, "The Information Age" (original) (raw)

The three-volumes book by Manuel Castells, *The Information Age* (1996–1998) strikes me today as more timely than ever. In 1999 I wrote an English-language review paper on it that I then also translated into Hungarian, and uploaded both to my website (see http://www.hunfi.hu/nyiri/castells\_rev.htm and http://www.hunfi.hu/nyiri/cast\_hn.htm). In my review I was critical of the author’s Marxism, but appreciated his formula “the space of flows dominates the space of places”, and quoted with approval his claim: “Nation-states will survive, but not so their sovereignty. They will band together in multilateral networks, with a variable geometry of commitments, responsibilities, alliances, and subordinations.” Now with the collapse of the Soviet Union on December 25, 1991, then with the 11 September 2001 attacks and its consequences, the rise of China to a world power, or say the fluctuating political alliances of my home country, Hungary, and now the Russian invasion of Ukraine, I feel the “variable geometry” notion deserves renewed attention. Hence my uploading my 1991 review to academia.edu.