The extent and content of the social consequences of the rapid development in IT is in the focus of rival theories. This position is justified: in addition of the challenge of the ecological-bio-technological development of the Millennium probably the question of information society is in the focus of the public and requires properly justified socio-theoretical answers. At the peak of a new wave of debates, that also was induced by the increased business and political activities launched by the information superhighway program of the Clinton-administration, it is time to examine what is the true content of the "information era". This is the connecting point in the articles of domestic and foreign experts between the search for the characteristic of the changes of the Millennium and the traditional (blessing or curse?) and new (information industry and labour, freedom of information, national information strategies) questions of the information society. The selection of articles in this issue of Eszmélet on the information society, deliberately, is completed with history-philosophical articles on the question of progress.

Table of contents

1. Vámos Tibor, György Péter, Szecskő Tamás : The information age in the light of social theory
2. Z. Karvalics László : Where does the superhighway lead us?
3. Saskia Sassen : The global city: a new frontier?
4. Joan Roefols : The third sector as a protective layer for capitalism
5. Serge Latouche : The megamachine and the destruction of social relations
6. W. B. H. J. van de Donk, Pieter W. Tops : Informatisation and democracy: Orwell or Athens?
7. Székely Iván : Information rights and the protection of privacy
8. Cognitariat
9. Internet
10. Nagygyörgy Imre : Iron Age – Comments to the National Information Strategy
11. Terminal
12. Aldous Huxley : The new brave world revisited (9th chapter)
13. John C. Antusch : Chomsky on the big screen
14. Andor László, Krausz Tamás : Ernest mandel (1923-1995)
15. Betsy Reed : The wealth of information
16. Jeff Keefe : Labour and the perils of the information superhighway
17. Immanuel Wallerstein : The agonies of liberalism
18. Kapitány Ágnes, Kapitány Gábor : Has there been progress in history?