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Who is he? Castells, 57, is probably the world's most highly regarded commentator on the information age and new economic order. His writings have been compared to Marx's analysis of 19th-century capitalism. Currently he is professor of sociology and planning at the University of California at Berkeley.
How did he get here?
Catalan by birth, Castells was the youngest politics and sociology professor at the University of Paris when he started work there in 1966, aged only 24. He went to California in 1979, having also taught in Chile, Mexico, Geneva, Singapore, Moscow, Madrid, South America and Hong Kong.
What he's written The Information Age.
Volume one: The rise of the network society (1996). Volume two: The power of identity (1997). Volume three: End of millennium (1998).
What they say about him The Wall Street Journal called Castells 'the first great philosopher of cyberspace', the LA Times dubbed him 'the Voltaire of the information age', while the Guardian called him 'the guru's guru'.
Soundbite
'There is a curious reversal (thanks to new technology) ... it used to be that the rulers spied on the people; now the people spy on their rulers.'
What's next?
Learn from Castells to track the development of what he calls 'informationalism' - knowledge-based capitalism.
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