The author, a business columnist for the New York Times, explores a world transformed by computers into an electronically integrated international market that is virtually unregulated - and so powerful that no government can defy its will. The book examines this new speed-of-light environment and shows how it works as well as whom it is working for - and against. It introduces people who control it, explains the technology that drives it and probes its revolutionary and potentially catastrophic effect on business.