On Mon, 22 Apr 2002, Brad DeLong wrote:
> > I'm looking for opinions on Manuel Castells.
>
> In person he's wonderful--tremendously knowledgeable, tremendously
> thoughtful, tremendously witty, and interested in all the right things.
>
> I've never been able to successfully crack his books, however. I fall
> asleep about 50 pages in, and wake up confused.
That was my experience exactly, except that I blamed it more severely on him. At first skim, he looked like he was going to connect a lot of interesting stuff that hadn't been connected before. But after 50 pages my strong impression was that the only connection he provided was juxtaposition, and that his only theory was that everything was somehow connected.
Of course you can never be certain about books you don't like, precisely because you don't want to re-read them. It's nice to know he's personally smarter than his books. I guess I should have guessed that. Lots of intellectuals whose popularity seems utterly unfathomable on the basis of their books turn out be charismatic yakkers whose fans hear their voice in their pages.
Michael