Abstract
The book argues ICT are part of the set of goods and services that determine quality of life, social inequality and the chances for economic development. Therefore understanding the digital divide demands a broader discussion of the place of ICT within each society and in the international system. The author argues against the perspectives that either isolates ICT from other basic social goods (in particular education and employment) as well as those that argue that new technologies are luxury of a consumer society. Though the author accepts that new technologies are not a panacea for the problems of inequality, access to them become a condition of full integration of social life. Using examples mainly from Latin America, the work presents some general policy proposals on the fight against the digital divide which take in consideration other dimensions of social inequality and access to public goods.

Bernardo Sorj was born in Montevideo, Uruguay. He is a naturalized Brazilian, living in Brazil since 1976. He studied anthropology and philosophy in Uruguay, and holds a B.A. and an M.A. in History and Sociology from Haifa University, Israel. He received his Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Manchester in England. Sorj was a professor at the Department of Political Science at the Federal University of Minas Gerais and at the Institute for International Relations, PUC/RJ. The author of 20 books and more than 100 articles, was visiting professor and chair at many European and North American universities, including the Chaire Sérgio Buarque of Hollanda, at the Maison des Sciences de l'Homme, and the Cátedra Simón Bolívar of the Institut des Hautes Études de l'Amérique Latine, in Paris. He is member of the board of several academic journals, advisor to scientific institutions and consultant to international organizations and governments. In 2005 was elected Man Of ideas of the Year. Currently he is professor of Sociology at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Director of the Edelstein Center for Social Research and of the Plataforma Democrática Project, and Coordinator of SciELO Latin American Social Sciences Journals English Edition.