Auto/Biography 0967-5507 12 3 200409 Sage Publications Sage UK: London, England Book Review: Our World, Our Lives The power of identity, second edition. Manuel Castells, 2004. Oxford: Blackwell; ISBN 1405107138, 537 pp. £17.99 RichardWallerUniversity of the West of England 266 268

266 Book ReviewOur World, Our LivesThe power of identity, second edition. Manuel Castells, 2004. Oxford: Blackwell; ISBN 1405107138, 537 pp. £17.99 SAGE Publications, Inc.2004DOI: 10.1177/09675507040120030404 Richard Waller University of the West of England The power of identity is the second in the trilogy The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture, first published to much acclaim during 1996—98, and currently being re-issued as a new edition. The book opens with a Maya Angelou poem written for the inauguration of Bill Clinton in 1993, extolling the virtue of living and actively shaping our destiny, and ends with a 10-page treatise upon the nature of social change in what Castells terms `network society'. The 400-plus pages in between confirm Castells's position as a foremost authority on con- temporary society, and the role of individuals and agencies within it. This is not, as the author himself acknowledges, `a book about books' (p. 2), but one of grand ideas, and in that approach Castells echoes the work of other heavyweight contemporary social theorists such as Beck, Giddens and Touraine, whose influences are all acknowledged. Potential readers interested in a detailed engagement with key thinkers, or what Castells terms `bibliography', are advised to `consult the many good textbooks on each matter' tackled (p. 3) instead, and I would concur. What this text does provide is a cogent analysis of the relationship between individual actors and political processes — both global and local — as mediated through technology, national and supra-national institutions and personal and collective identities. 267 Castells has not updated references or data in this volume, his justification being that the book's purpose is `analytical, not docu- mentary' (p. xvi), but I think this is a shame nonetheless, since doing so would allow him to engage with developments in these spheres since the turn of the millennium. Likewise, two of the six chapters (`Patriarchalism' and `The environmental movement') remain unchanged from the first edition, which could also have been recti- fied, even if rewrites were intentionally minimal. Castells suggests that he does not wish to be `running after events for the rest of my life' (p. xvi), a sentiment with which we can perhaps empathize, but I feel a revision would be worthwhile to further strengthen what is an impressive discourse on contemporary world affairs. Where this edition has been updated to consider, for instance, the growing influence since 1997 of environmental or religious fundamentalism upon personal, national and international politics, the result is powerful. For instance, Chapter 2 highlights the impact of globalization and informationalization via `networks of wealth, technology and power' (p. 72) in transforming the world and its inhabitants. It offers an impressive breadth of empirical data covering five diverse movements opposing the US-dominated New World Order — Mexico's Zapatista guerrillas, the American Militia move- ment, Al-Qaeda, the Japanese Aum Shinrikyo cult and western anti-globalization protestors. In so doing, Castells mounts a forceful argument for considering these seemingly disparate social movements similarly. That is, as `defensive movements built around the trenches of resistance from specific identities and/or specific interests' (p. 73). At the time of writing this review in March 2004, with the anti- western movements in both Afghanistan and Iraq showing little sign of being quelled, and the recent bombing of trains packed with commuters in Madrid, all seemingly under the aegis of Al-Qaeda, one might dispute Castells's assertion that the environmental lobby is the most influential social or political movement of our time. Of general interest to the reader of Auto/Biography would be the opening chapter, `Identity and meaning in the network society'. Here, Castells stresses the need to distinguish an individual's identity from their social role(s). Drawing upon Calhoun (1994), he characterizes identity as `the process of construction of meaning on the basis of a cultural attribute' (p. 6). For Castells, the very plurality of contem- porary identities causes stress and contradiction in both (re)presen- tation of the self and social action. Roles (for example, `father', `university lecturer' or `football fan') are framed by norms in turn given by social structures. Meanwhile, identities `are sources of meaning for the actors themselves, and by themselves' (p. 7), and 268 are generally stronger than roles due to processes of internalization, self-construction and individuation (Giddens, 1991). At its simplest, `identities organize the meaning, while roles organize the function' (p. 7). But it is perhaps collective rather than individual identity/ies that is/are of greatest interest to Castells in the book, and their use as tools to interrogate issues including the anti-New World Order social movements discussed above. This is a powerful and insightful book that adds to Castells's repu- tation as one of the foremost social theorists writing today, and it offers something of interest to specialist and general reader alike. REFERENCES Calhoun, C. 1994: Social theory and the politics of identity. Oxford: Blackwell. Giddens, A. 1991: Modernity and self-identity: self and society in the late modern age. Cambridge: Polity Press . Calhoun, C. 1994: Social theory and the politics of identity. Oxford: Blackwell. Giddens, A. 1991: Modernity and self-identity: self and society in the late modern age. Cambridge: Polity Press .