Alvin Toffler (1928–2016)

Author of Future Shock

22+ Works 6,070 Members 57 Reviews 9 Favorited

About the Author

Alvin Toffler was born in New York on October 4, 1928. He received a degree in English from New York University in 1950. While in college he helped register black voters in North Carolina. After graduating, he moved to Cleveland, Ohio with his wife Heidi and took a production job in a factory. He show more learned to weld and repair machinery. In 1954, he became a reporter for Industry and Welding. He went on to become a reporter for Labor's Daily and then as a labor editor and columnist for Fortune magazine. He left Fortune in 1962 and began a freelance-writing career covering politics, technology, and social science for scholarly journals and writing long interviews for Playboy magazine. He wrote 13 books during his lifetime including Future Shock, The Third Wave, and Powershift. He received a career achievement award in 2005 from the American Society of Journalists and Authors. In 1996, he and his wife formed Toffler Associates, a global forecasting and consulting company. He died on June 27, 2016 at the age of 87. (Bowker Author Biography) show less

Includes the names: Toffler a, A. Toffler, Alan Toffler, Alvin Tofler, Toffler Alvin, Alvin Tofflen, Alvia Toffler, Alvin Toffler, Alvin Toffler, editor, شهیندخت خوارزمی

Image credit: Robert Basile

Works by Alvin Toffler

Popular Recent

Future Shock (1970) 2,611 copies

The Third Wave (1980) 1,363 copies

Powershift: Knowledge, Wealth, and Violence at the Edge of the 21st Century (1990) 787 copies

War and Anti-War: Survival at the Dawn of the 21st Century (1993) 382 copies

Revolutionary Wealth: How It Will Be Created and How It Will Change Our Lives (2006) 363 copies

Creating a New Civilization: The Politics of the Third Wave (1994) 207 copies

Previews and Premises (1810) 104 copies

The Eco-Spasm Report (1975) 76 copies

The Futurists (1972) — Editor; Contributor; Introduction — 69 copies

The Adaptive Corporation (1985) 65 copies

Learning for Tomorrow: The Role of the Future in Education (1974) — Editor — 54 copies

The Culture Consumers: Art and Affluence in America (1964) 40 copies

La Tercera Ola Vol. I (1985) 5 copies

Os novos poderes (1999) 3 copies

Powershift. As Mudanças do Poder (Em Portuguese do Brasil) (2006) 3 copies

The Schoolhouse in the City (1968) 1 copy

Sarvat Enghelabi 1 copy

La Tercera Ola Vol. II (1985) 1 copy

Die Zukunftschance. Von der Industriegesellschaft zu einer humaneren Zivilisation (1980) 1 copy

Kursbuch ins dritte Jahrtausend : Weltprognosen und Lebensplanung; ein Kompendium d. Zukunftsforschung 1 copy

עושר מהפכני (2008) 1 copy

A Terceira OIda 1 copy

Work Explorer

Associated Works

Order Out of Chaos (1984) — Foreword — 795 copies

Rethinking the Future: Rethinking Business, Principles, Competition, Control and Complexity, Leadership, Markets, and… (1993) — Foreword — 118 copies

Explorations of the Marvellous (1976) — Contributor — 44 copies

Science Fiction at Large: A Collection of Essays, by Various Hands, about the Interface between Science Fiction and… (1976) — Contributor — 32 copies

La Crisis Economica Mundial (Spanish Edition) (2009) — Contributor — 4 copies

The Do-It-Yourself Bestseller: A Workbook (1982) — Contributor, some editions — 4 copies

Playboy Magazine | October 1963 | Teddi Smith (1963) — Contributor — 3 copies

Future Shock [1972 film] 2 copies

Essays Today 6 (1968) — Contributor — 2 copies

Future Shock [1993 film] 1 copy

Tagged

20th century (28) business (49) change (24) civilization (27) cultural studies (19) culture (73) current affairs (29) economics (150) economy (18) essay (19) essays (17) fiction (32) future (130) Future Studies (19) futurism (173) futurist (39) futurology (62) globalization (28) history (103) modern civilization (16) non-fiction (379) own (20) paperback (25) philosophy (71) politics (115) psychology (28) read (35) science (42) social change (55) social commentary (24) social history (26) social science (51) society (75) sociology (341) technology (99) to-read (144) Toffler (16) trends (21) unread (27) war (16)

Common Knowledge

Canonical name: Toffler, Alvin
Legal name: Toffler, Alvin Eugene
Birthdate: 1928-10-04
Date of death: 2016-06-27
Burial location: Westwood Memorial Park, Los Angeles, California, USA
Gender: male
Nationality: USA
Birthplace: Brooklyn, New York, USA
Place of death: Los Angeles, California, USA
Places of residence: Brooklyn, New York, USA
Cleveland, Ohio, USA
Washington, D.C., USA
Manchester, Massachusetts, USA
Redding, Connecticut, USA
Education: New York University (BA|1950)
Occupations: welder
journalist
futurologist
Relationships: Toffler, Heidi (wife)
Organizations: Fortune
Toffler Associates
Awards and honors: American Society of Journalists and Authors career achievement award (2005)
Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science (1984)
Officier de L'Ordre des Arts et Lettres (1984)
McKinsey Foundation Book Award for Contributions to Management Literature (1970)
Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger (1972)
American Society of Journalists and Authors Author of the Year 91983)

Members

Reviews

Future Shock by Alvin Toffler

Pop pessimistic futurism, a genre that entered the mainstream after Toffler.

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sfj2 | 26 other reviews | Nov 19, 2023 |

Future shock by Alvin Toffler

I think that [a:Alvin Toffler|3030|Alvin Toffler|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1226226386p2/3030.jpg] had a glimpse or prophetic insight as to what the future held for a society who continue to excel at technological advances.

I read several reviews from 2007 & 2008 - I don't agree with those who were critical of [b: Future Shock|466537|Future Shock|Alvin Toffler|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1175007455s/466537.jpg|280121] but I read it as a young person, and the peek into another dimension of how humans can so easily shed their warmth and humanity never left me.

When the movie Soylent Green came out in 1973, it was a portion taken from "Future Shock," but the entire book was nothing like the movie.

I have always been leary of Soy since then - good thing for me...tofu? Hmm.… (more)

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ourBooksLuvUs | 26 other reviews | Aug 20, 2023 |

The Third Wave by Heidi & Alvin Toffler

An early look at what post-industrial society might look like.

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mykl-s | 11 other reviews | Aug 13, 2023 |

HLa Iterza ondata by Alvin Toffler

Toffler è stato considerato un "futurologo" e sotto molti punti di vista questo libro è profetico. Al di là della metafora delle tre ondate e di alcuni neologismi di successo (tecnosfera, sociosfera, infosfera), il testo include alcune sorprendenti previsioni sul presente, per esempio quelle legate alla progressiva demassificazione dei media (perfettamente rappresentata da internet), allo sviluppo delle organizzazioni di impresa o al riemergere del "prosumer". Il tutto è reso ancor più significativo dal fatto che il libro è del 1980.… (more)

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d.v. | 11 other reviews | May 16, 2023 |

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