These factors may work together to produce a situation not unlike that of the 19th century, when vast groups of people were uprooted to fulfill the labor needs created by the Industrial Revolution. These are just a few of the general trends that Castells attempts to identify. While the three volumes are long on data and short on firm conclusions about the future, the specifics he addresses in illustrating his points make for interesting reading and prompt the reader to consider various what-if scenarios. But one comes away from the trilogy recognizing that the subject is so big that even the best minds writing in such magna opera as Castells s are incapable of giving us the full sense of the revolution we are witnessing. The advance of the Information Age is in many ways like the development of a new empire, though this empire is not limited, as others before it have been, to time and space.
Several questions remain, however.
This is the drama for which Castells wisely refuses to provide an ending. So often in the past, the real enemy of empires was not the foe without but the dark side of human nature within. More often than not, empires collapsed because of internal social forces at work the moral decline and eventual collapse of the Roman Empire being perhaps the most notable example. The astonishing powers being unleashed by the explosion of information technologies will demand strong moral and ethical character from the citizens of this new global empire if it is to enjoy a happier fate.