Castell's most important contribution was that he attempted to build a grand theory of the information age in macro-perspective. Even though his work is still progressing, his wide ranging analysis has provided an in-depth, yet macro understanding about the information society. The majority of his approach has been empirical in an attempt to diagnose the contemporary problems in the information society. Castells states his high dissatisfaction with the apparent superficiality of the prophecies that futurists such as Toffler and Gilder had announced for the "new" society. Although there are some criticisms that Castells overemphasized the negative effects of the information economy, his analysis for each case, such as the collapse of Soviet Union, was empirical and very accurate.
In addition, Castells analysis is globalized, even if he warns of the dark side of globalization. As most information infrastructures are centralized on U.S. or Western European nations, most of the academic analysis on information economy concerns those countries. However, Castells’ empirical studies range from the fourth-world countries to the European Union.
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