Manuel Castells and Historical Materialism

The Information Age According to Manuel Castells

The terms “information age” and “information society” are used by many writers as shorthand to refer to the confluence of an incalculable number of contemporary social and structural transformations. A sizeable chunk of these events have been described and analyzed by Manuel Castells in The Information Age: Economy, Society, and Culture. Castells is professor of city and regional planning and p...

Manuel Castells and the Decline of Twentieth-century Sociology

A quick consideration of the recent decade reveals the implosion of sociology. Several sociology departments have been merged with those from other disciplines, and as the number of undergraduate sociology majors has declined, some even have been eliminated. The discipline’s research openly assumes an ideological tone palatable to only the most liberal of scholars or ignorant of laymen. Clearly...

Ecology and Historical Materialism

The Urban Sociology of Manuel Castells : A Critical Examination of the Central

Precis: The writings of Manuel Castells are centrally concerned with the development of a Marxist urban sociology. This article provides a critical examination of the central concepts of these writings. The article begins with some preparatory remarks on Castells's critique of conventional urban sociology and on the Althusserian variant of historical materialism which he adopts. This is followe...

Dialectical & Historical Materialism: the Science of Revolution

The tool of analysis is for us a further development of the historical materialist method, the dialectical method. We will not even waste our time debating the values of Marxism with those who are essentially hung up on white people – hung up to the point of ideological blindness. We understand the process of revolution, and fundamental to this understanding is this fact: Marxism is developed t...