Book Review: Networking Knowledge for Information Societies: Institutions and Intervention, edited by Robin Mansell, Rohan Samarajiva and Amy Mahan, 2002

Abstract

Networking Knowledge for Information Societies: Institutions and Intervention sounds like a textbook for students of the New Economy or another academic foray into unravelling the information revolution. It is, fortunately, neither of these. Rather it is a remarkable book about a remarkable man, Bill Melody. Described as a Festschrift, it celebrates Bill Melody's 'outstanding contribution to our understanding of the evolution of information and communication technology over the past half-century, and to the problems of regulating and controlling it during a period of revolutionary change in the technology'. It is also a snapshot of the state of debate on the global information society emerging from the rapid changes in information and communication technology (ICT) as reflected through the views of its fifty contributors.