Review

Offers a comprehensive assessment of the European Information Society programme ... provides an authoritative antidote to visions driven by technological determinism and technological utopianism ... of considerable interest to any serious analyst of the topic. Journal of Documentation

Review

`This book represents a unique combination of sound scholarship and relevant policy analysis. Researched and written by two leading academics, it informs and stimulates thinking on key issues of economic growth and social equity in the age of the Internet, mobile phones, and electronic services. It covers a broad range of technological, economic, and social issues with a focus on how society actually uses new information technologies. It is essential reading for analysts and policy makers, as well as for anyone wanting to understand the transformation of our technological way of life, and making use of this knowledge for everyday life.' Manuel Castells, Professor of Sociology, University of California at Berkeley and author of The Internet Galaxy

`. . . Mansell and Steinmueller's highly accessible presentation guides the non-specialist reader towards a sophisticated appreciation of the great variety of interacting forces that have governed and will continue to shape the uneven and circuitous path towards the realization of "the information society". By integrating a deep and comprehensive grasp of the nature, potentialities and limitations of digital information technologies with a sophisticated understanding of the economics of information, and of the political economy of global computer-mediated telecommunications, this book provides a framework for policy analysis that will be widely applicable.' Paul A. David, Professor of Economics, Stanford University and Senior Research Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford