We are now living through a period of knowledge capitalism in which, as Manuel Castells puts it, 'the action of knowledge upon knowledge is the main source of productivity'. In the face of such transformation, the economic, social and institutional contours of contemporary capitalism are being reshaped. At the heart of this process is an emergent set of economies, regions, institutions and people central to the flows and translations of knowledge. This book provides the first interdisciplinary review of the triad of knowledge, space, economy on entering the twenty-first century. Drawing on a variety of disciplinary backgrounds, the first part of the book comprises a set of statements by leading academics on the role of knowledge in capitalism. Thereafter, the remaining two parts of the book explore the landscape of knowledge capitalism through a series of analyses of knowledge in action within a range of economic, political and cultural contexts.
Bringing together contributions from across the social sciences, this book provides both a major theoretical statement on understanding the economic world and empirical exemplification of the power of knowledge in shaping the spaces and places of today's economy and society. John Allen, Open University, UK; Morag Bell, Loughborough University, UK; John Bryson, University of Birmingham, UK; David B. Clarke, University of Leeds, UK; Ian Cook, University of Birmingham, UK; P