Is any image in modern times more evocative of social change than the computer? Popular mythology ascribes extraordinary powers to computers in the ordering of human affairs. Computers are seen as instruments of social transformation and economic change. Indeed, it is hard not to find computers in the modern workplace, let alone in the home. They are ubiquitous in government offices, businesses large and small alike, the school, and not-for-profit organizations. In this meticulously researched study of computers and computing, authors James B. Rule, Debra Gimlin, and Sylvia Sievers present...

Globalization has become perhaps the most central--and one of the most contested--terms in the social sciences in the present day. If one wishes to understand the conditions in which different groups of people live today, it seems increasingly impossible to ignore the aspects of those conditions that are seen to be characterized, or influenced, by "global" forces, movements and phenomena. Regarding particular phenomena, no matter how apparently "local" or parochial in nature, as being located within "global" flows or systems or structures, seems today to be a very necessary component of...