Manuel Castells - one of the world's pre-eminent social scientists - has drawn together a stellar group of contributors to explore the patterns and dynamics of the network society in its cultural and institutional diversity. The book analyzes the technological, cultural and institutional transformation of societies around the world in terms of the critical role of electronic communication networks in business, everyday life, public services, social interaction and politics. The contributors demonstrate that the network society is the new form of social organization in the Information age, replacing the Industrial society.

The book analyzes processes of technological transformation in interaction with social culture in different cultural and institutional contexts: the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Finland, Russia, China, India, Canada, and Catalonia. The topics examined include business productivity, global financial markets, cultural identity, the uses of the Internet in education and health, the anti-globalization movement, political processes, media and identity, and public policies to guide technological development. Taken together these studies show that the network society adopts very different forms, depending on the cultural and institutional environments in which it evolves.