This volume explores the construction of collective identities as they
relate to social movements and power struggles in the network
society. It also deals with the transformation of the state, politics,
and democracy under the conditions of globalization and new communication
technologies. The understanding of these processes aims
to provide new perspectives for the study of social change in the
Information Age. In this preface I use the vantage point offered by a
new publication of this book in 2010 to assess social and political
developments in the early twenty-first century by using the analytical
framework proposed in 1997 and updated in 2004 in the first and
second editions of The Power of Identity