Sociologist, International Relationist.  Born in La Mancha Spain, became an instructor at the University of Paris at the age of twenty-four. Immigrated to the United States in 1979. Based at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at USC but also holds positions at  Open University of Catalonia in Barcelona and University of California, Berkeley. Author of 22 academic books and editor or co-author of 21 additional books, as well as over 100 articles in academic journals.
 

"If I had been in a normal country, law would have attracted me very much, and economics also; but I was driven to the necessity for social change, first in Spain and then later in France. Sociology was a discipline that was more intellectually open, less dominated by a narrow view of the world, that things are as they are and you cannot move them. So the notion of integrating my intellectual activity, my professional activity, and the possibility of contributing to some form of social change and betterment of society was appealing to me, as I would say, to most sociologists."

-Manuel Castells