Showing how the construction of virtual worlds has a long history, Rob Shields looks at the origins and the many contemporary meanings of the virtual. He examines the many forms of faith and hysteria that have surrounded computer technologies and, moving beyond the technologies themselves, he shows how the virtual plays a role in our daily lives at every level. The virtual is also an essential concept needed to manage innovation and risk. It is real but not actual, ideal but not abstract. The virtual, he argues has become one of the key organizing principles of contemporary society in the...